The United Arab Emirates military on Thursday said it would buy
two more Boeing Co. C-17 military transport planes as production
reaches its end.
The deal, valued at 2.3 billion U.A.E. dirhams ($630 million),
was announced by the military during the International Defence
Exhibition and Conference taking place in Abu Dhabi.
Boeing is closing down production of the military plane
developed for the U.S. Air Force amid dwindling demand and is in
the process of selling the last of the C-17 jets it built. The
company last month said it had seven more of the planes to
unload.
The U.A.E. has used its six long-range C-17 transport planes in
humanitarian missions as part of a more assertive foreign policy
adopted by the country. The country bought the first batch of C-17
planes in 2010. The last of those was delivered in June 2012.
The U.A.E. is a major arms buyer and key market for western
defense companies. It was the world's fourth biggest weapons
importer in 2013, according to the Stockholm International Peace
Research Institute.
Write to Robert Wall at robert.wall@wsj.com
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