SYDNEY/TOKYO (Reuters) - Australia has awarded a A$50 billion ($40 billion) contract to build its new fleet of submarines to France's state-controlled naval contractor DCNS Group, two sources said on Tuesday, beating out bids from Germany and Japan.
Australia intends to buy 12 new submarines, a centrepiece of its defence strategy unveiled in February, which called for an increase in military spending of nearly A$30 billion over the next 10 years to protect strategic and trade interests in the Asia-Pacific.
France's state-controlled naval contractor DCNS has proposed a diesel-electric version of its 5,000-tonne Barracuda nuclear-powered submarine.
(Reporting by Colin Packham in Sydney and Nobuhiro Kubo and Tim Kelly in Tokyo; Editing by Lincoln Feast)
