Hanwha Ocean has bolstered its partnerships with Canadian companies to strengthen its submarine businesses, the Korean shipbuilder said Friday.

According to the company, Hanwha Ocean signed a teaming agreement with CAE, a Canadian simulation technologies developer that provides integrated live, virtual and constructive training solutions for defense forces, at Canada's largest defense and security trade show CANSEC in Ottawa. Hanwha Ocean and Hanwha Aerospace were the only Korean firms to participate in this year’s CANSEC.

Hanwha Ocean explained that the signing is an upgraded version of the memorandum of understanding it had inked with the Canadian company at the Deep Blue Forum in November.

The Korean shipbuilder also signed MOUs with Curtiss-Wright Indal Technologies and Gastops to collaborate on towed array sonar operation systems with the former and work together on propulsion system control, modeling and simulation with the latter.

The officials from Hanwha Ocean and the three Canadian companies agreed to advance their cooperation in various sectors such as technological exchanges, joint research and development and market search.

“The signings of the teaming agreement and MOUs will serve as important stepping stones to expand cooperative networks between Hanwha Ocean’s technological abilities and Canadian local companies,” said Lee Yong-ook, executive vice president and head of the naval ship business unit at Hanwha Ocean.

“Hanwha Ocean will do its best to contribute to the growth of the Korean defense sector by developing optimized solutions based on its global top-class submarine technologies and in collaboration with Canadian firms to increase maritime defense exports.”

With the latest partnership developments, Hanwha Ocean is seeking to secure a stronger strategic foothold in Canada’s defense sector as the country is working to renew its naval fleet. The Canadian government has set out the Canadian Patrol Submarine Project as it intends to replace the aging four Victoria-class submarines that were acquired between 2000 and 2015.

Hanwha Ocean is the eighth company in the world to have developed a 3,000-ton class submarine and the fifth country to export submarines.