COLOGNE, Germany \u2014 Germany\u2019s TKMS and Singapore-based ST Engineering\u2019s naval division signed an agreement on Tuesday toward the establishment of a joint submarine maintenance center in Singapore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The envisioned center would service the Asian nation\u2019s own TKMS boats of the 218SG class, as well as submarines built by the German shipbuilder for allied nations navigating in the area, TKMS said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The signing of a memorandum of understanding to that end coincided with a visit to Singapore by German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, who praised the tiny nation as Berlin\u2019s decades-long ally in the Asia-Pacific region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pistorius\u2019 remarks about the companies\u2019 submarine plans lent an air of grand strategy to the pact, as he described the idea of a submarine \u201chub\u201d that could serve global nations with an interest protecting maritime trade routes \u2014 and who happen to have bought submarines from TKMS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Singapore has ordered six submarines of the 218SG type from the German shipyard, known as the Invincible class, three of which are already delivered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The city state also buys land weapons from Germany, having amassed what Pistorius called a \u201cbig\u201d fleet of Leopard 2 tanks. Various reports peg the number of tanks at 170 tanks or more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pistorius said he was delighted to hear Singapore is also considering buying Boeing P-8 maritime-surveillance aircraft, which would create another element of armament commonality with Germany. Berlin received its first P-8 out of an envisioned fleet of eight earlier this year, he added, noting that aircraft already saw service in the Indo-Pacific area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Editor\u2019s note: An attribution in this article was corrected to reflect TKMS as the sole author of a statement about servicing TKMS submarines, not a joint declaration by both companies.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The maintenance center would be able to service local and international TKMS boats coming through the area, the idea goes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":117564,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":45,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[45,160,11,16,36],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3425],"class_list":["post-72594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-daily-news-roundup","category-global","category-naval","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"7PHMECFMJRDLNOAIYFZJHNYM3A","arc_canonical_url":"\/global\/asia-pacific\/2026\/03\/24\/tkms-and-st-engineering-to-create-submarine-service-hub-in-singapore\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n