Ash Bolt
The federal government will provide a North Geelong business with $1.76 million to boost its defence manufacturing capabilities.
Victorian senator Sarah Henderson announced last week Marand Precision Engineering would receive the grant as part of the government’s $2.5 billion Modern Manufacturing Strategy.
Ms Henderson said the grant would allow Marand to develop an integrated welding centre for advanced steel alloys in North Geelong.
“This project will implement a welding centre with hardware, software and ancillaries to enable the ‘survivability of modern military platforms using high-grade ballistic steels’,” she said.
“This will fill a significant gap in the nation’s military manufacturing capacity and provide potential export opportunities for future projects.”
The majority of manufacturing work for the project will be based at the North Geelong site, with additional work completed at Marand’s Moorabbin site.
Liberal Candidate for Corio Manish Patel said the announcement represented significant investment in local manufacturing.
“With unemployment in Geelong at just 1.9 per cent, I am delighted about the many ways in which the Morrison Government is supporting the people of Corio,” he said.
The grant to Marand comes just weeks after Hanwha Defense Australia began works on its Howitzer defence project at Avalon Airport.
Hanwha Defense Australia is constructing a $170 million armoured vehicle centre of excellence facility for the $1 billion defence project which will create at least 300 jobs, including 100 construction jobs.
Both Hanwha and Marand, which has partnered with Rheinmetall Defence Australia, are competing for a $27 billion defence contract to build armoured vehicles for the army.
