The US defence giant Lockheed Martin has been awarded a $12.7bn contract to provide support for F-16 fighter jets flown by 16 foreign countries.

The contract will be welcome news for the company, which reported a net loss of $1.51bn (�1.08bn) from October to December.

The main reason for the loss were the costs of Lockheed pulling out of the telecommunications business.

The new 23-year contract is for engineering services, technical support, acquisition development and integration for weapons.

Joint Strike Fighter

The U.S. Air Force said the contract was in support of F-16s flown by Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Bahrain, Egypt, Greece, Israel, Jordan, South Korea, Portugal, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey and Venezuela.

Lockheed is also expected to benefit in the future from the production of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF).

The contract to develop the JSF aircraft - the biggest military equipment contract in history - was won last year by Lockheed, beating a rival bid from Boeing.

The contract could be worth more than $200bn, as the US Government wants up to 3,000 JSFs over the next 40 years to replace nearly all of its fighter jets currently in use.