South African defence companies must be able to both compete and cooperate with each other. So affirmed Saab Grintek Defence (SGD) senior VP Micael Johansson on Thursday. "In South Africa and on the continent, we need to get the balance right between competition, which is necessary and healthy, and cooperation," he said.

"We must cooperate where it makes sense, particularly in the high-tech areas we [the South African defence industry] are good at," he urged. "Where it makes sense, we must pool resources, in those niches where we are excellent." Thus, there could be the possibility of joint bids between South African companies for contracts in Africa. "[But] not stopping competition. We need to be extremely competitive if we are to win contracts."

The South African industry also has to strike a balance between the domestic market and export markets. "I do not think South Africa can support us fully if we are not exporting high-tech products," he affirmed. But the South African National Defence Force is the local industry's reference customer and the industry needs to show success in supporting it. "There is an almost symbiotic relationship between export success and local deployment."

"We live in a rapidly changing world which is not getting any safer," he pointed out. Worldwide, there was now a trend of rising defence budgets. "But we will not return to the days when we had privileged relationships with our home governments. It's a very tough market. Governments are demanding more bang for the buck, definitely."

"I think, for us as an industry, we have an environment in which we have to put more money into R&D [research and development]," he averred. The industry had to embrace new methods and technologies.

SGD had its own, indigenous capability, not imported from Sweden. Its local shareholding has recently been increased and it obtains 80% of its revenues from exports and only 20% from the domestic market. "We are confident we produce excellent, competitive, products," asserted Johansson. He was addressing the Denel Aerospace, Maritime and Defence Conference 2015 in Pretoria.