ALMATY (Press release) – The French group Thales establishes an industrial presence in Kazakhstan through its joint venture company Thales Kazakhstan Engineering. The Minister of Defence of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Adilbek Dzhaksybekov, has officially inaugurated the Thales Kazakhstan Engineering (TKE) production facility, a joint venture company established in Almaty by Thales and its partner KazakhstanEngineering to produce tactical radio units.

Thales Tactical Radio Communications brochure (PDF)
Thales is a global technology leader for the Defence & Security and the Aerospace & Transport markets. In 2010, the company generated revenues of €12.1 billion with 68,000 employees in 50 countries. With its 22,500 engineers and researchers, Thales has an exceptional ability to design, develop and deploy equipment, systems and services that meet the most complex security requirements. Thales has a very wide international footprint, with operations around the world working with customers as local partners.

Thales and Kazakhstan Engineering announced last week the official inauguration of their brand new production facility in Almaty, which will produce state-of-the-art tactical radio units for the Kazakh Armed Forces. The facility was inaugurated by Adilbek Dzhaksybekov, Minister of Defence of the Republic of Kazakhstan, and marks the fulfilment of the Memorandum of Understanding signed in 2009 by President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France.

At this facility, Thales Kazakhstan Engineering (TKE) produces the VHF PR4G F@stnet and HF Skyf@st families of software radio products, which are used in more than 40 countries. These products provide reliable, secure voice and data communications and mobile Internet services to the armed forces.

The production capacity of the facility is fully scalable and initially configured to deliver a first batch of approximately 400 units by the end of 2011. The facility will progressively ramp up its production capacity, in order to produce the required volume of units for the Kazakh Armed Forces.

According to Thales, the PR4G F@stnet family represents the best technology available today to match real operational situations in the battlefield. Features include a smart Free Channel Search (FCS) solution to overcome frequency shortage issues and counter wide-band jammers, and a simultaneous voice and data capability to handle intense data traffic in a modern Battlefield Management System.

More than 150,000 Thales PR4G F@stnet radios are already in use in 43 countries.