French shipbuilders Naval Group and Italy's Fincantieri on Friday signed an agreement on Friday to create an 50-50 joint venture in a bid to take on rising global competition.

"This is the culmination of a shared industrial ambition, which is the long-term position of the European shipbuilding industrial market which has undergone a profound transformation," Naval Group chief Herve Guillou told two journalists, including AFP.

First floated in 2017, the "Poseidon" alliance project initially included cross-shareholding between the two groups, but this was abandoned last year in favour of a joint venture.

The deal was signed on Friday by Guillou and Fincantieri chief Giuseppe Bono on board the frigate Frederico Martinengo in the Italian port city of La Spezia.

"We are by far the two largest European naval players, but if we rely on our domestic markets alone we cannot maintain our resources and remain competitive," said Guillou.

The groups have said the alliance would permit the two companies to team up on research, development and procurement for some common projects, either bilateral or for export.

Competition in the industry is heating up, with China's CSIC last year becoming the world's largest shipbuilding company, while a Russian group is expected to be the second biggest next year.

dlm/ef/dl/jh

NAVAL GROUP

Fincantieri

Related Links
Naval Warfare in the 21st Century

Tweet

Thanks for being here; We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain. With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords. Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Contributor $5 Billed Once credit card or paypal		SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter $5 Billed Monthly paypal only

Bath Iron Works gets $61.6M for work on Navy's DDG 51 destroyers
Washington (UPI) Jun 10, 2019
Bath Iron Works received a $61.6 million contract modification for lead yard services for the U.S. Navy's DDG 51-class destroyers. The Defense Department announced the contract with the company, a division of General Dynamics in Bath, Maine, on Friday. "Lead yard services" is a broad category encompassing necessary engineering support and configuration, baseline upgrades and new technology support, data and logistics management, analysis, acceptance trials, post-delivery test and trials ... read more