Singapore buys mostly from the United States, France and Germany but also has its own defence industry, centred on ST Engineering. The state-owned group supplies the Singapore Armed Forces and has many customers abroad.

“Most countries are either interested in or actively pursuing their own domestic arms industry,” said Storey.

“It’s cheaper than buying from overseas, long-term they’re looking at developing their own export markets and, certainly this is true for Indonesia, it insulates them from sanctions from countries like the United States.”

(Additional reporting by Neil Chatterjee in JAKARTA, Rosemarie Francisco and Manny Mogato in MANILA and Martin Petty and Amy Sawitta Lefevre in BANGKOK; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)