Agence France-Presse, Thailand has decided to develop and produce rockets and missiles in a radical shift towards building an indigenous defense industry, Jane’s Defence Weekly reported April 12.
The specialist publication said the program would lift Thailand beyond its current capacity for producing explosives, ammunition and small arms under license as well as modernizing and repairing aircraft and armored vehicles.
Citing an internal Thai defense ministry document, Jane’s said Thailand will start by developing a multiple-launch rocket with a range of 48 miles.
There is already a project underway to develop a 160 millimeter MLR with a 40-kilometer range, it said.
Other projects include a “strategic rocket with turbojet engine guided by global position system and inertial navigation system,” it added.
Such a rocket is significant because it implies efforts to develop a surface-to-surface missile with a range at the upper limit of the voluntary Missile Technology Control Regime.
The MTCR, a global disarmament group involving the U.S. and 33 other members, was established in 1987 to control exports of missiles which can deliver weapons of mass destruction.
The Thai armed forces do not currently have any surface-to-surface missiles in their inventory, it added.
The ministry document says funding pressures on the defense budget and encouragement by unspecified sectors for greater self-sufficiency is driving the new program.
Thailand’s King Bhumipol Adulyadej, who enjoys strong support from the armed forces which overthrew the Thai government in a bloodless coup last September, has called for a “sufficiency economy,” the weekly said.
Jane’s added that the new research and development program was launched before the coup but gained formal approval when it was submitted to the country’s Defence Council about a month afterwards.
