India and Indonesia have reached an agreement that could pave the way for the sale of the BrahMos missile system to the Southeast Asian nation that lies along the rim of the South China Sea.Indonesian Defence Ministry spokesperson Rico Ricardo Sirait was quoted by Reuters on Monday as saying the agreement was “part of the modernisation of military hardware and defence capabilities, especially in the maritime sector”.Sources in India said the two sides had discussed the sale of the BrahMos supersonic missile in November last year during the Defence Cooperation Dialogue hosted by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh for his Indonesian counterpart Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin in New Delhi.Singh had also gifted a model of the BrahMos missile to Sjamsoeddin and shared a photograph of the occasion on X. The Indonesian delegation was briefed about the missile by officials of BrahMos Aerospace.India has already exported the missile system to the Philippines, another nation with a coastline along the disputed and hydrocarbon-rich South China Sea. Indonesia also has a small coastline along the same sea, where China has overlapping maritime claims.India and Indonesia are working on a phased procurement plan that would include the BrahMos missile, which can strike targets at a range of nearly 300 km. The deal is expected to include the sale of one battery comprising launchers, radars and missiles. Export versions of the BrahMos have a range capped at 290 km.New Delhi has also proposed setting up a joint defence industry cooperation committee to collaborate in areas such as technology transfer and joint research and development.Indonesia is in the process of arranging financing for the purchase through one of its banks. Sources said the contract could be signed in the next two to three months once the bank’s paperwork is completed.Capable of coastal defence, ground attack and anti-ship roles, the BrahMos is the world’s only operational supersonic cruise missile that flies at nearly three times the speed of sound. It was developed as a joint venture between India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation and Russia’s NPO Mashinostroyeniya in 1998.