The official ceremony marking the acceptance by the Arab Republic of Egypt of its first three Rafales held at the Dassault Aviation flight test center in Istres, France, July, 2015 – Courtesy of Dassault Aviation
CAIRO – 5 February 2020: The Egyptian army have advanced three places and ranked ninth out of 138 in the annual index of Global Firepower, exceeding many advanced armies including that of Turkey, Iran and Israel.
According to the Power Index of the specialized military ranking website, Egypt holds a rating of 0.1872, Global Firepower reported, as 0.0000 is considered “perfect”. Egypt followed US, Russia, China, India, Japan, South Korea, France and UK in terms of the army’s strength.
Global Firepower considers 50 individual factors to assess the strength of each country’s army, which are all placed under the sectors of manpower, airpower, land forces, naval forces, natural resources, natural resources, logistics, financials and geography.
Egypt is ranked 10 out of 138 in the total strength of airpower, and took the 4th place in terms of tanks, and 6th in terms of armored vehicles and rocket projectors, according to the global index. The total assets of the army’s naval forces brings Egypt to the 7th place.
In 2014, Egypt and France inked a €1 billion arms deal whereas France furnishes four Gowind battleships to the Egyptian Navy. The first corvette was produced in France and delivered in Lorient in September 2017. The other three were to be built in Egypt under a transfer of technology agreement, according to France 24.
One of those was launched in September 2018 as the first ever Egyptian made warship. The ‘Port Said Corvette’ is manufactured by Alexandria Shipyard Company in cooperation with France’s state-owned shipbuilder Naval Group.
In 2015, Egypt signed an agreement to buy French weapons worth €5.2 billion, including 24 Rafale combat jets made by Dassault Aviation, a multi-mission naval frigate, and air-to-air missiles.
In 2016, both countries signed agreements for the purchase of weapons including fighter aircraft, navy vessels and a military satellite communication system worth €1 billion. In the same year, Egypt received two Mistral helicopter carriers as part of this deal.
In 2011, Egypt had ordered two Type-209/1400 submarines from Germany before ordering two others in 2014. The first two arrived in December 2015 and August 2017, respectively. In May, Commander of Naval Forces Ahmed Khaled received the third in the German city of Kiel.
Additional reporting by Noha Al-Tawil
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