EADS,
On behalf of the Eurofighter consortium, EADS proposed to establish a long-term strategic partnership with Indian aerospace and defence companies. Speaking at a press conference during Aero India 2009, Bernhard Gerwert, CEO of Military Air Systems, an integrated Business Unit of EADS Defence & Security, said in Bangalore: “We have a strong interest to create a long-lasting strategic partnership with Indian aerospace and defence companies and we are committed to bring our capabilities, skills and technologies into this win-win-partnership.”
The CEO said: “India is our partner of choice and therefore we invite India to join the Eurofighter Typhoon programme as a partner. We are ready to listen and to learn from our Indian customers and industrial partners.”
A competitive Eurofighter Typhoon bid proposal and a comprehensive offset offer were submitted to the Indian authorities in 2008. Since then, 25 Memoranda of Understandings (MoUs) were already signed to enhance the industrial cooperation with India's aerospace and defence industry. The Eurofighter Typhoon partner companies are confident to fulfill the 50 percent offset obligation of the Request for Proposal (RFP) and will offer India access to an international sourcing network of unparalleled scope.
The production of the Eurofighter Typhoon will create thousands of new jobs in India. The leading-edge combat aircraft has a tremendous built-in growth potential and therefore the Eurofighter partner companies are able to offer India new opportunities for future cooperation in design, development and manufacturing. Gerwert said: “We are ready to provide our operational, support, engineering and development capabilities to the Indian aerospace and defence sector which is growing fast and we want to grow together with this dynamic development.”
EADS which has the lead of the Eurofighter Typhoon campaign in India, is currently preparing its participation in the flight trials of the Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) competition. The flight trials are expected in 2009 after a short-listing of the bidders and intensive preparations have been launched to meet this important milestone.
Gerwert stated: “We are very grateful that the German Air Force deployed three Eurofighter Typhoon to Bangalore. It is the very first time that Eurofighter Typhoon flies in the Indian air space and therefore they will be a major highlight at Aero India 2009.” The ongoing campaign is fully supported by the four European nations Germany, United Kingdom, Spain and Italy, their four Air Forces and Europe's leading aerospace companies Alenia/Finmeccanica, BAE Systems and EADS.
The CEO of Eurofighter GmbH, Aloysius Rauen, stated that Eurofighter Typhoon is currently the most modern combat aircraft available on the world market. Rauen said: “Eurofighter Typhoon is clearly in the pole position with an order book of more than 700 aircraft for six nations.” In addition to the four core nations Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain and Italy, Austria and Saudi Arabia are the first two export customers.
“It is expected that there will be more customers and orders in the forthcoming years because several nations already expressed their strong interest in the Eurofighter Typhoon. Amongst them are Switzerland, Greece, Turkey, Japan, Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia. The economic significance of the Eurofighter Typhoon programme is based on an order backlog of more than 19 bn EUR with annual revenues of about 3.5 bn EUR. More than 400 companies and over 100,000 jobs are currently involved in the European programme.”
Military Air Systems is an integrated Business Unit of EADS Defence & Security (DS). DS is a systems solutions provider for armed forces and civil security worldwide. Its portfolio ranges from sensors and secure networks through missiles to aircraft and UAVs as well as global security, service and support solutions. In 2007, DS – with around 22,000 employees – achieved revenues of EUR 5.5 billion. EADS is a global leader in aerospace, defence and related services. In 2007, EADS generated revenues of EUR 39.1 billion and employs a workforce of about 116,000.
