U.A.E. Military Orders 2 More Boeing C-17s

The United Arab Emirates military on Thursday said it would buy two more Boeing Co. C-17 military transport planes as production reaches its end.

The deal, valued at 2.3 billion U.A.E. dirhams ($630 million), was announced by the military during the International Defence Exhibition and Conference taking place in Abu Dhabi.

Boeing is closing down production of the military plane developed for the U.S. Air Force amid dwindling demand and is in the process of selling the last of the C-17 jets it built. The company last month said it had seven more of the planes to unload.

The U.A.E. has used its six long-range C-17 transport planes in humanitarian missions as part of a more assertive foreign policy adopted by the country. The country bought the first batch of C-17 planes in 2010. The last of those was delivered in June 2012.

The U.A.E. is a major arms buyer and key market for western defense companies. It was the world's fourth biggest weapons importer in 2013, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

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