The highlight of the year was Singapore Technologies Engineering's $330 million contract with the British armed forces for the Singapore-built Bronco - the largest defence industry deal with a Western nation.

ST Engineering's four arms - ST Kinetics, ST Aerospace, ST Electronics and ST Marine - now export everything from assault rifles to navy vessels around the world.

Its executive vice-president for international marketing, Mr Patrick Choy, said 2008 has been a breakthrough year.

The sale of more than 100 Broncos, combined with a second contract to supply 40mm ammunition, also for the United Kingdom, means the company is now selling about five times more products overseas than when it began in 2000.

'To be able to sell our capabilities to a renowned first-world military (organisation) is a new milestone, certainly one for the record books,' said Mr Choy.

The Singapore-based company has come a long way since it began some 40 years ago to produce equipment for the Singapore Armed Forces, which remains its key client.

ST Engineering is one of the world's top producers for 40mm ammunition and small arms such as its CIS40 Automatic Grenade Launcher and Ultimax 100 machine gun.

Other hot sellers include the SAR 21 rifle and naval platforms like landing craft.

Most of them, according to Mr Choy, have been battle-tested in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The recent Bronco deal has been in the works for almost a year and is all the sweeter since the company had earlier failed to sell the armoured vehicles to Finland and France.

The deal comes more than eight years after it first tried to supply another armoured fighting vehicle, the Bionix, to the United States army.

Read the full story in Tuesday's edition of The Straits Times.