Comments
India and France today decided to set up teams to work out details of the acquisition of 36 Rafale fighter jets in fly-away condition in a “time bound manner”.
The decision came following a meeting between the visiting French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and his counterpart here Manohar Parrikar.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had last month announced India’s intention to buy 36 Rafale fighter jets from France under a government-to-government deal during his trip to the country.
As a follow-up on the subject, Drian and Parrikar met here to decide on the way forward.
“The two Defence Ministers discussed modalities in order to reach an early conclusion of an Inter-Governmental agreement on the subject. The two sides decided to set up teams to work out the details in a time-bound manner,” a short statement by the Defence Ministry said.
French defence major Dassault Aviation, manufacturer of Rafale, is likely to enter into a joint venture with state-run HAL or any private player to set up a base here for augmenting its existing production line in Merignac in France, defence sources had said.
The deal is estimated to be over $6 billion and will have about 30-50 per cent offset.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.