Italian Navy’s Bergamini-class frigate ITS Carabiniere docked at the Port of Colombo in Sri Lanka on December 11.
The FREMM frigate is on a deployment to Australia and South East Asia during which it will, among other duties, serve as a platform for promoting the Italian industry.
More specifically, Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri is financing this deployment as the company is looking to promote the frigate design to the Australian Navy.
The shipbuilder is currently bidding to design and build nine, new frigates for the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) and was short-listed by the Australian government together with two other European shipbuilders, BAE Systems and Navantia.
Apart from Fincantieri, Leonardo, MBDA and Telespazio are some of the Italian companies taking part in this promotion of the Italian industry.
ITS Carabiniere sailed out of La Spezia, Italy on December 20 and, after crossing the Suez Channel docked in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on December 27. The channel crossing was the third one for the frigate with previous two taking place during the frigate’s deployment to the counter-piracy operation Atalanta off Somalia in 2015.
The ship is scheduled to stay at Colombo Harbour until January 14.