EADS invites India to join Eurofighter project

Tamil Nadu: European aerospace consortium EADS invited India to be a part of its prestigious Eurofighter upgrade project, saying it would help Indian companies enhance their skills in the aviation field.

The company, which has bid for the Indian Air Force's mega deal for induction of 126 medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA), said if India joined this prestigious project, it would become the fifth country and the first outside Europe to be part of the project.

The reason given by the EADS officials is that when Spain joined the programme, it only had design capabilities for propeller and jet aircraft. But after entering the Eurofighter programme, Spain boosted its aviation capability considerably.
'This encourages us to invite India to join the project,' said Christian Albert, a senior official at the EADS.

The consortium is also ready to include India in its supersonic jet trainer programme and other futuristic projects such as unmanned aerial and undersea vehicles. 'India would be interested to jump into these. This is one topic that would be discussed with respect to offsets,' Albert said.

Offsets are crucial component of the over $10 billion mega tender for the fighters floated by the Indian Air Force (IAF) and the six competitors are exploring new avenues to ensure that 50 per cent of the contract value is generated within India.

The normal offset value is 30 per cent for big contracts in India but Defence Minister AK Antony suggested this percentage could be hiked to 50 per cent so that Indian aviation industry becomes more sophisticated and advanced.

'We are in the build up for phase II of the Eurofighter programme. It will include new equipment and continue to be dynamic. It might be interesting for Indian companies to jump in at phase II and III,' Albert told visiting reporters at the company's Manching plant on the outskirts of Munich.

German Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung, during his speech at the reception hosted in honour of Defence Minister AK Antony, had said that Germany was looking forward to an active cooperation from Indian side in the Eurofighter project.