LANGKAWI, March 28 — Over RM4 billion worth of contracts have been signed throughout the Langkawi International Maritime and Aerospace 2019 (LIMA’19) exhibition.

This morning, seven procurement and industrial collaboration programme deals were signed between the Defence Ministry and various companies in a signing ceremony witnessed by Defence Minister Mohamad Sabu.

Six memoranda of understanding (MOU) were also exchanged while eight letters of intent (LOI) and 10 letters of acceptance (LOA) were handed out for various procurement contracts.

The procurement contracts signed this morning totalled about RM3.67 billion.

Most of the contracts were for the maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) services for existing strategic defence assets.

According to an official statement from the ministry, the procurement contracts for MRO were to ensure that the country’s current security and defence systems are maintained at optimum level.

"In the meantime, the government will continue to consider the procurement of new strategic defence assets, taking into account of the current technological advancement and non-traditional security threats,” it said.

In addition to the contracts signed this morning, another RM500 million worth of agreements and MOU were signed between various companies throughout LIMA’19 bringing the total worth of contracts signed to over RM4 billion.