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SINGAPORE (AFP) - The US firm Lockheed Martin said Thursday some Asian countries had expressed serious interest in the defence contractor's new class of warship, which can be used against terrorist and pirate vessels.

The company was in intensive talks with nations in Asia and elsewhere about the ship, said Dan Howard, the firm's senior adviser for Asia-Pacific affairs, on the sidelines of a defence exhibition in Singapore.

News of the negotiations comes amid a naval build-up in Asia, with the region expected to spend 108 billion US dollars on boosting submarine and other maritime defences over the next 10 years, the exhibition's organisers said.

The Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), designed to operate close to the shore and able to hunt submarines and conduct surveillance, was ideally suited to Asian countries with vast maritime coastlines, he said.

The first LCS, being built for the US Navy, was 80 percent complete and due for delivery early next year, but the firm does not have any international customers yet, Howard said.

"However, we are talking very, very intensely with several non-US countries about a specialised application of the Littoral Combat Ships to their requirements," he said.

Howard declined to name the countries but said some of them were in Asia.

"There are many applications in this region," he said. "Coast guards are looking at it, navies are looking at it. It's the perfect size for many of the naval applications out here."

Some contracts for the sale of the ships outside the United States could come within the next year, he said.

The LCS is a sleek, 115-metre (379-foot), 3,000 tonne (3,300 ton) vessel, with a draft of only four metres, allowing it to operate close to shore.

Howard, a onetime US assistant secretary of defence and special assistant to former US President Ronald Reagan, said Lockheed Martin was also in talks with potential buyers of its Aegis air defence system.

Lockheed Martin was in "very, very intense discussions with at least four countries right now for an Aegis application," he said.

He would not name the countries or the regions they are from.

Press reports have said a US firm, believed to be Lockheed Martin, had briefed India's navy about the system, which is currently used outside the United States by the Japanese, Norwegian and Spanish navies.

South Korea will launch its first destroyer equipped with the Aegis system on May 25, Howard said.

"The threat environment has become so much more hostile that they felt they had to have the most capable system to deal with that," he said, apparently referring to the threat from Stalinist North Korea.

The LCS can be equipped with a smaller version of the Aegis, the US Navy's most advanced air defence system, Howard said.

Lockheed Martin and European naval defence manufacturer DCNS were among top global firms to display their lethal wares in Singapore at this year's IMDEX Asia 2007 show, which ends Friday.

The event's organisers said the Asia-Pacific's projected spending over the next decade on items such as submarines, anti-submarine vessels, patrol ships, fast attack craft and amphibious vessels would outstrip the United States and Europe.

The US military accounts for 80 percent of Lockheed Martin's business, and international customers contribute the other 20 percent, Howard said.

The firm's largest customers within that 20 percent are in Asia, namely Japan and South Korea, which have long used large combat systems.

Howard said his company hopes to find other markets for products like the LCS and the Remote Minehunting System, an unmanned system used to search for mines at sea.

"We see an increasing need for our capabilities among the maritime nations of Asia," he said.