Babcock‘s Director of Business Development and Campaigns , Geraint Lloyd, will present the British shipyard’s experience in the panel Continuous National Shipbuilding Plan (PNCCN): benefits and challenges that will take place on December 5 at the International Congress of the Chilean exhibition Exponaval 2024.

This international naval and maritime exhibition and congress for Latin America is a biennial international event organized since 1998 by Fisa, a company of the international group GL Events, which brings together navies and the main leading companies in the development of technological solutions for the naval and maritime industry in Chile.

The fair, which is aimed at navies and exhibitors from the global defense, shipbuilding, technology, maritime, security and telecommunications industries, is expected to bring together more than 88 exhibiting companies, more than 35 participating countries and over 7,000 professional visitors from December 3 to 6 at the Puerto Valparaíso Passenger Terminal.

The central theme of Exponaval’s 13th International Congress will be The challenges for the defense industry in the new international order and will feature two keynote lectures and four panel discussions with the participation of approximately 25 national and international experts, who will carry out a complete analysis of the new challenges in this area.

Continuous National Shipbuilding Plan

The objective of this initiative of the Chilean Navy is to build in the country the units of the naval and maritime fleet instead of acquiring them used. The plan seeks to promote shipbuilding with a planned development and logistic optimization, contributing to the generation of jobs, research, innovation and new companies, in addition to leaving a large part of the investment in Chile.

The plan received the support of President Gabriel Boric, who on June 1 requested the Ministries of Finance, Defense and the Chilean Navy to deliver a National Shipbuilding Policy for the coming years with Asmar as the leader in an articulation of the capacity of public and private shipyards.

Babcock is a leading provider of critical complex engineering services to the defense and civilian sectors.
It has underway the construction of five Type 31 ( Inspiration Class) frigates for the Royal Navy and is currently replicating this model in countries with similar characteristics to Chile, such as Poland and Indonesia, which selected the Arrowhead 140 frigate.

In the seminar “Innovation in Defense for the Social and Economic Development of Chile”, organized at the end of November 2023 by the National Defense Committee of the Senate, Babcock highlighted the role of the naval industry in the growth of a country and indicated that their experience is replicable in Chile and that they are in a position to support the Continuous National Shipbuilding Plan.

In this regard, it should be noted that the Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Navy, Admiral Juan Andrés De la Maza, visited Babcock’s facilities in Rosyth in June , where he received a general description of the construction program for the Royal Navy’sType 31 frigates and the export variants of the Arrowhead 140 model.

Source: Infodefensa.com