Alstom Wins French Navy Contract

Alstom SA secured a contract from military shipbuilder Direction des Constructions Navales to help build two military transport vessels for the French armed forces. Alstom's Chantiers de l'Atlantique yard on France's west coast will provide forward accommodation sections for the 200-m ships, designed to transport 450 military personnel. The vessels, to be delivered in the second quarter of 2005 and the first quarter of 2006, would each house six helicopter pads and four smaller barges in which troops would disembark. Alstom did not disclose a price for the contract but said that the work carried out on the two ships would be equivalent to that involved in building one medium-sized cruise ship. - (Reuters)