DUBAI- Abu Dhabi Ship Building and Italy's Leonardo signed a memorandum of understanding on Tuesday to work together to create a combat-management system (CMS) for the United Arab Emirate's navy ships, state news agency WAM reported.

The companies will work jointly on an integration laboratory capable of testing, maintaining and evolving the software of Leonardo's combat-management system, which is operational on more than 20 of the UAE Navy's ships, WAM said.

The agreement also covers potential development of a joint logistic support solution for preventive and corrective maintenance and a local spare parts inventory for Leonardo naval systems.

(Reporting by Asma Alsharif and Alexander Cornwell Editing by David Goodman) ((asma.alsharif@thomsonreuters.com; +20225783290; Reuters Messaging: asma.alsharif.reuters.com@reuters.net))