TAIPEI — As U.S. and European defense budgets experience
nervous breakdowns, the Asian market for new naval and coast guard ships to
protect fisheries, commerce and littoral claims sees no slowdown.
No more evidence is
needed than the International Maritime Defence Exhibition (2013 IMDEX Asia) in
May in Singapore. According to Jimmy Lau, managing director of Experia Events,
this year’s expedition space for IMDEX is already 80 percent booked.
“We will be welcoming new exhibitors, including Fincantieri,
Luerssen, Scania, Schiebel and Westport Shipyard, alongside returning top
companies, such as DCNS, Lockheed Martin and ST Engineering,” he said. This year’s IMDEX
also will see an increased presence of shipbuilders providing offshore patrol
vessels (OPVs) and smaller patrol vessels, “which are looking to tap growing
demand for such vessels as navies in the region look to modernizing their
fleet,” Lau said.
OPVs are in big
demand in the Asia-Pacific region. According to a 20-year forecast by the
U.S.-based naval analysis firm AMI International, “Global Naval Investment: The
‘Hi-Lo’ Mix,” the Asia-Pacific OPV market is expected to generate 55 vessels
through 2030, making it the second-most potent OPV market after NATO, at 72.
Singapore, Malaysia
and Indonesia face challenges patrolling and safeguarding the sea lanes of
communication through the Singapore and Malacca straits, which are vulnerable chokepoints.
There also have been demands for patrol vessels among countries disputing rich
fishing grounds and potentially lucrative petroleum reserves in the South China
Sea.
The Philippines is
frustrated over Chinese maritime incursions and counterclaims by Beijing over
the Scarborough Shoal, which is within the exclusive economic zone of the
Philippines. The Philippine Navy has begun the Capability Upgrade Program of
its Strategic Sail Plan 2020. Since 2009, the
Philippine Navy also has acquired multipurpose attack craft and a landing craft
utility vessel. In 2011 and 2012, the
U.S. provided two ex-U.S. Coast Guard vessels, both Hamilton-class
high-endurance cutters, to the Philippine Navy. A third Hamilton-class vessel
is under discussion. In 2012, Japan
announced plans to provide the Philippines with 10 100-meter patrol vessels for
its Coast Guard.
Japan has been making
moves to defend its southern island chain, including the announcement that the
Ministry of Defense plans as early as 2015 to purchase and deploy an
as-yet-unstated number of Global Hawk UAVs and monitor the nation’s far-flung
Senkaku islets. The pending
deployment of the UAVs, leaked to local media in December, follows an
increasingly rancorous dispute over the islands, situated in the East China Sea
between Okinawa and Taiwan, which have seen repeated incursions of Chinese
ships into areas around the islands. The move to deploy
U.S.-made UAVs comes on top of robust plans to increase the MoD’s abilities to
deter aggression and, most recently, projected not-too-distant capacity to even
retake the Senkakus if invaded.
From this April, the
MoD will fund programs that will significantly boost Japan’s capabilities to
defend its southern island. These include improved maritime surveillance and
forward deploying a new coastal surveillance radar and coast observation unit
on Yonaguni island, adjacent to Taiwan.
“I think we’re seeing the coalescence of nearly two decades
of steadily increasing mistrust of China by the Japanese people. That’s been
borne out by the reaction to the crises around the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands,”
said James Manicom, Research Fellow at Centre for International Governance
Innovation, a Canadian think tank. The Japanese Ground
Self-Defense Force (GSDF) marines also have been training with U.S.
counterparts to enhance amphibious warfare capability.
“The GSDF has been training with the marines for eight years
now. ... I believe that Japan now has 80 percent of the capabilities of what it
takes to field an amphibious landing force,” said Paul Giarra, president,
Global Strategies & Transformation, a Washington-based defense consultancy. And the new Japanese
government under the conservative Liberal Democratic Party, which came to power
Dec. 26, is expected to further boost defense spending. AMI said procurements
of new naval vessels and upgrades of older ones continue to grow for both large
and small vessels. The Asia-Pacific is still buying and building more “littoral
optimal” ships and submarine hulls in the 3,000-ton-and-below range for ships,
and the 1,500- to 2,000-ton range for submarines, said Bob Nugent, vice
president of AMI’s advisory services. “To boil it down — I don’t see it so much as ‘either/or’
[littoral or blue water] when it comes to new-build ship investment decisions
for an increasing number of Asia-Pacific navies,” he said.
For example, among
2,000- to 4,000-ton multipurpose combatants, including SIGMAs for Indonesia,
Singapore’s Formidable-class frigates and Malaysia’s second-generation patrol
vessels, are “emerging as the optimal flex design to cover the broadest mission
set … capable of covering littoral ops and distant deployments,” Nugent said. Lau said the
Asia-Pacific region recently surpassed Europe as the world’s second-largest
naval market after the U.S., with projected spending of more than $201 billion
in the next two decades on about 1,055 ships. “Southeast Asia in particular is set to spend more than $25
billion on new naval ships through 2031, with patrol vessels, frigates and
amphibious ships forming the core of future new naval projects in the region,”
Lau said.
Lau said that in line
with industry trends, one of the new highlights of IMDEX Asia will be
demonstrations of unmanned aerial systems (UASs), which have been gaining
ground rapidly in the industry. Singapore’s ST
Engineering has been producing a variety of UASs, including the Fantail and
Skyblade family, and has been developing surface unmanned vessels. These will
primarily be used for coastal waterway, harbor and hazardous missions.
Submarine Spending
Navies in the
Asia-Pacific region will “acquire more submarines and spend more on them over
the next two decades than any other region in the world except the United
States,” Nugent said.
“The Asia-Pacific region remains the largest regional
submarine market in the world by hull numbers, and second-largest [after the
U.S.] in planned investment,” he said. “With 282 new submarines to be built
worldwide through 2031, the Asia-Pacific region is expected to acquire over 40
percent of that total, and expend over 27 percent of all new submarine funding
worldwide over the same period.” Six countries in the Asia-Pacific make up almost 90 percent
of future new-construction submarine acquisitions projected over the next two
decades. According to AMI, the Asia-Pacific countries spending the most on
submarines, in order, are India, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Australia and
China. Among some Asian
countries, including Singapore and Vietnam, submarines are primarily used to
protect exclusive economic zones and conduct surveillance in the littorals.
China is expected to first use its subs to patrol disputed islands in the South
China Sea before conducting longer-range blue-water missions.
On China, AMI bases
its estimated acquisition cost on 16 new-build submarines forecast to join the
fleet in the next five years.
The AMI forecast
report predicts that the Asian and Australian market will produce 116
submarines between now and 2032. The report also concludes that the regional
market for both naval and coast guard acquisitions will result in 128
amphibious vessels, 12 corvettes, two cruisers, 235 fast attack craft, 82 OPVs
and 255 patrol craft.
from AMI Jan 2013
