India and the Philippines will soon formally seal a government-government agreement that will finalize years of negotiations to supply a batch of supersonic cruise missiles for the Philippine Navy, people familiar with the development said Thursday.

The procurement is expected to signal a significant upswing in India’s strategic relationship with the Philippines, which have focused on expanding their naval forces amid ongoing tensions with China in the South China Sea.

The above said the negotiations on the BrahMos deal are almost complete and both sides are now ready to officially seal the deal in the next few weeks.

BrahMos Aerospace, an Indo-Russian joint venture, produces supersonic cruise missiles that can be launched from submarines, ships, aircraft or land platforms.

The rocket flies at a speed of Mach 2.8, or almost three times the speed of sound. The variant to be exported should have a range of around 290 kilometers.

In the past few days, the Philippines signed a number of defense agreements aimed at modernizing their armed forces.

In November last year, Russian Deputy Head of Mission Roman Babushkin said that India and Russia plan to export the Brahmos missile to the Philippines and several other countries.

It is known that the Philippines will initially procure the missiles for its naval forces, although the country is also investigating the weapons for its land forces.

A number of countries, including Indonesia and many in the Gulf region, have shown an interest in obtaining the missile.

In March India signed a framework agreement with the Philippines that included government-government agreements for the supply of defense materials and equipment.

Defense and strategic relations between India and the Philippines have been on an upward trend in recent years.

In August, India conducted a naval exercise with the Philippines in the South China Sea.

As an important country of the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), the Philippines has territorial disputes with China in the region of the South China Sea.

China claims sovereignty over the entire South China Sea, a huge source of hydrocarbons. However, several ASEAN member countries, including Vietnam, the Philippines and Brunei, have counterclaims.

(Only the headline and image of this report may have been revised by Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is automatically generated from a syndicated feed.)

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