Philippines Orders Two Corvettes from South Korea's Hyundai Heavy

The Philippines Navy is buying two new warships from South Korea's Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI).

"This project will give the Philippine Navy two modern corvettes that are capable of anti-ship, anti-submarine and anti-air warfare missions," Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said Tuesday in a speech at the signing ceremony in Manila.

The deal "will ensure commonality and interoperability with our existing assets," he added, as well as "ease of maintenance and repairs."

The 28 billion pesos ($556 million) contract sees the delivery of the corvettes by 2026. This deal comes five years after HII had won a contract to build two new frigates for the Philippine Navy.

Corvettes and frigates are small, fast warships mainly used to protect other vessels from attack.

The South Korean shipbuilder’s corvettes tailored for the Southeast Asian country are set to be a multi-purpose surface combatant with 3,200-ton displacement, 116m length and 14.8m breadth.

With a maximum speed of 25 knots and cruising speed of 15 knots, the corvettes will have a 16-cell vertical launching system (VLS), eight anti-ship missile launchers, a 35mm close-in weapon system (CIWS), a 76mm main gun, two three-tube torpedo launchers and Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar.