Britain is committed to further developing and strengthening partnerships with South Africa in the defence and security sectors, not least with the South African defence industry. “Prime Minister Theresa May’s recent visit here highlighted the importance the UK places on its defence relationship with South Africa,” UK Department for International Trade Defence and Security Organisation senior spokesperson Adam Thomas told Engineering News at the recent Africa Aerospace and Defence (AAD) 2018 show.

“We have a high regard for the South African defence industry and for what it has achieved,” he highlighted. “We are [at AAD] to promote partnerships between South African and British defence and security companies.

“Our aim is equal partnerships. Our objective is to develop long-term strategic partnerships, including technology transfer, and to work together to access global markets and, most importantly for both South Africa and the UK, remembering small and medium-sized enterprises. We also want to encourage yet more South African companies to seek to register to supply our Ministry of Defence.”

Britain was interested in developing a “more strategic” approach to intellectual property, he explained. The country sought not merely to sell equipment to customers but to equip those countries to build the systems themselves. “We think this is a very good strategy, which will benefit South African industry.

“It is clear that South Africa is increasingly concerned about cybersecurity; we are very willing to share our experiences in this area,” he observed. “And there are areas in which we would like to learn from South Africa’s experiences.” Regarding cyber, the UK had set its own national Cyber Centre during the past year. This has been done in cooperation with industry. The British government has worked very closely with industry in this field, and would continue to do so.

One of the UK companies participating in AAD 2018 was the British subsidiary of Japanese information technology group Fujitsu. Its central theme at the show was cybersecurity. The other British companies which participated in AAD 2018 were Babcock, Chemring Energetics, Inmarsat, Pearson Engineering and Qineteq.