The main hall of a new submarine assembly facility in Brazil by a DCNS joint venture has been officially inaugurated by Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff.

The facility is located in Itaguai, on the Bay of Sepetiba. It will be used initially to assemble and outfit sections of four Scorpene conventional submarines for the country's navy and nuclear-powered submarines later.

"The achievement of this milestone demonstrates that Brazil possesses cutting-edge industrial infrastructures allowing it to strengthen the capacities of its navy," said Hervé Guillou, DCNS' chief executive officer. "DCNS is proud to work alongside the Brazilian Navy to ensure the success of this vast technology-transfer program."

DCNS, headquartered in France, said once the main hall is fully operational it will have the capacity to build two Scorpene submarines simultaneously.

DCNS' diesel-electric Scorpene attack submarines have a submerged speed of 20 nautical miles per hour and a submerged range of 550 nautical miles at a speed of 5 nautical miles.

Chile and Malaysia both operate Scorpene submarines and India also plans to acquire them.

The submarine shipyard is being built by DCNS' joint venture with Odebrecht, Itaguai Construções Navais.