T

he Defense Ministry has pledged to spur the development and production of naval weapons by national defense firms in an effort to realize President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo'€™s vision of maritime power.

Speaking during the opening ceremony of the 2014 Indo Defense Expo and Forum, Defense Minister Ryamizard Ryacudu said the ministry was committed to advancing the country'€™s defense industry by promoting joint cooperation between local and overseas defense firms.

Through such cooperation, he said, local defense companies would gain essential knowledge and experience that would eventually help them to independently produce state-of-the-art armaments for the Indonesian Military (TNI).

'€œWe have been able to build our own corvettes; we will soon construct three submarines. Two will be built through cooperation with South Korea and another will be made in Surabaya [in East Java],'€ he said at the exhibition venue at JIExpo in Kemayoran, Jakarta on Wednesday.

In December 2011, the ministry and Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) signed a US$1.1 billion contract to manufacture three U-209 diesel-electric submarines.

Weighing 1,400 tons and measuring 61.3 meters in length, each submarine will be able to carry up to 40 crew members and be equipped with eight tubes for torpedoes and other ordnance.

Engineers from state-owned shipyard PT PAL Indonesia will be given a chance to take a close look at the construction of the first two submarines at a DSME plant in South Korea before they construct the last one at the PT PAL plant in Surabaya.

The project was initially expected to be completed by 2018, but a ministry official confirmed that the construction of the three submarines had experienced a significant delay.

'€œThe first two will be done by 2019, while the completion of the third one will be in 2023. We hope to expedite the construction,'€ the ministry'€™s industry and technology director, Brig. Gen. Zaenal Arifin, said recently.

Obsolete weapons systems have hampered the TNI'€™s ability to guard Indonesia'€™s territorial waters. Among the security problems that have marred the country'€™s waters are illegal fishing and the influx of illegal migrants by boat, in particular from the Middle East.

In a bid to tackle the issues, the government has implemented a grand strategy to fulfill the military'€™s Minimum Essential Force (MEF) blueprint and to have an independent defense industry by 2024.

In the first phase of the strategy between 2010 and 2014, the government disbursed Rp 22 trillion ($10.02 billion) to procure new armaments, with Rp 19 trillion going to local defense firms, according to the ministry'€™s latest data.

By the end of this year, the country will have reached almost 40 percent of its MEF, exceeding its initial target of 30 percent. The three expected submarines, however, will not be enough to monitor and defend the country'€™s vast waters.

'€œWith the addition of three submarines, we will end up with a fleet of five submarines. According to the MEF plan, the Indonesian Navy ideally needs at least 12 submarines,'€ Navy spokesman Commodore Manahan Simorangkir said.

In the second phase of its strategic plan from 2015 to 2019, the country aims to elevate the role of local industries in supplying weaponry for the TNI.

Vice President Jusuf Kalla said the local defense industry had the potential to develop arms technology.

'€œ[Developing] technology is not an easy thing because it needs research, huge funding, good coordination and cooperation ['€¦] Indonesia has sufficient experience in technology,'€ Kalla said.