UK to sign $5.8 bln deal with General Dynamics for armoured vehicles

Sept 3 (Reuters) - The British government said it would sign a deal worth 3.5 billion pounds ($5.76 billion) on Wednesday with General Dynamics (NYSE: GD - news) for new armoured fighting vehicles, its biggest single order for such vehicles in over 30 years.

Prime Minister David Cameron will sign the defence contract for 589 new armoured fighting vehicles to strengthen Britain's armed forces as he sets off to host the two-day NATO summit in Wales that begins on Thursday, the government said in a statement.

The deal for the vehicle, also called Scout Specialist Vehicles, is expected to create 1,300 jobs in the UK, of which 300 would be in Wales.

"With the second largest defence budget in NATO ... we are ensuring Britain's national security, staying at the forefront of the global race and providing leadership within NATO," Cameron said in a press statement.

The vehicles, whose deliveries are planned to start in 2017, would be the army's first fully digitalised armoured vehicles. The vehicles were designed at General Dynamics in South Wales, alongside the Army, the government said.

($1 = 0.6072 British Pounds) (Reporting by Shivam Srivastava in Bangalore; Editing by Leslie Adler)