Jeddah, July 02: European aerospace and defense contractor EADS has signed a contract with Saudi Arabia to build a high-tech security fence on 9,000 km of the country’s border, the company said yesterday.
In a long-awaited deal, EADS Defense and Security, a subsidiary of the French-German conglomerate, is expected to create a system of security posts and surface and aerial monitoring of the Kingdom’s land and sea borders over the next five years, the company announced.
The project “will ensure border coverage is visible and managed at the sector level, while simultaneously providing situational awareness at the regional and national level,” the company said.
EADS said it is the prime contractor for the project, which comes in addition to an ongoing border security project for the Kingdom’s northern border with Iraq in which EADS is a participant.
EADS’ partner in both projects is the Saudi contractor Al Rashid Trading and Contracting Co.
The contract was signed here Tuesday with top EADS and Saudi officials present, sources said. EADS put no value to the deal, but French weekly magazine Le Point reported yesterday that it was worth about two billion euros ($2.8 billion).
In a previous statement, Maj. Gen. Mansour Al-Turki, spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said work on the 900-km desert border with Iraq would be completed by the end of this year.
—Agencies