Saudi Gazette report

RIYADH — Saudi Arabian Military Industries (SAMI) is working with the General Authority for Military Industries (GAMI) to produce a Saudi-made drone, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Walid Abukhaled said on Sunday.

Abukhaled told Al-Ekhbariya TV on the sidelines of the World Defense Show (WDS) that the drone will be used by Saudi armed forces.

The company is working on establishing the world’s largest munitions factory and localizing defense industries, the official added.

In October 2021, GAMI signed an agreement with Saudi Arabian Military Industries (SAMI) for the development of a drone, to be named “Sky Guardian”.

The agreement is aimed to build a regionally and globally leading innovative technological base by developing, manufacturing and localizing the drone systems, according to the issued statement.

This comes with the aim of presenting a national product that is in line with the requirements of beneficiary entities, which will help achieve the main goal of localizing more than 50% of the Kingdom’s purchases of military equipment and services by 2023.

SAMI has set its sights on accelerating its transformation to become one of the top 25 defense and security companies in the world by 2030.

The past year was one of significant growth for SAMI, helping the company achieve key milestones in terms of growth and expansion.

The successful completion of the Al-Sarawat project involving five new Avante 2200 corvettes for the Royal Saudi Naval Forces was among the exceptional achievements of 2021.

The annual revenue registered a whopping 2,407% increase to reach SR2.6 billion, and the contracts and backlog exceeded SR10 billion with a localization commitment of 57.7% approved by GAMI.

In other major developments signifying SAMI’s unprecedented growth last year, it secured SR7 billion in debt and gained SR130 million in income from liquidity management, intragroup lending, and project trade finance, and grew its employee base by 633% to reach 2,500 from 341 in 2020.