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The world's largest defence corporation US-based Lockheed Martin has become the first company to submit letter of interest for supplying F-16 fighter jets to the Indian Airforce, reports CNBC-TV18.
The world's largest defence corporation US-based Lockheed Martin has become the first company to submit letter of interest for supplying F-16 fighter jets to the Indian Airforce, reports CNBC-TV18.
Last week the Ministry of Defence issued a request for information to global OEMs for acquiring single-engine fighter jets to replace the MIG-21s - close on the heels of the Rafale deal.
Lockheed Martin's global team is in India this week and met with various government departments to pitch for the F-16. The company's top executives today told CNBC-TV18 that not only will the company shift its entire F-16 manufacturing line from Texas to India but will export the fighter jets to other countries after India's requirements are met.
Below is the verbatim transcript of Randall L Howard and Abhay Paranjape's interview to Surabhi Upadhyay and Ronojoy Banerjee on CNBC-TV18.
Q: Have you responded to Ministry of Defence request for single engine fighter jets?
Howard: We receive some correspondence from the government late last week and we responded to that and our response went out early this week so very much so we are looking forward to conversation with your government about this acquisition and the opportunity for us.
Q: The one big thing that Lockheed Martin has put on the table is possibly shifting the entire F-16 manufacturing plant from Forth Worth, Texas to India. Tell us a little bit about that?
Howard: Yesterday all our F-16 were built in Forth Worth, Texas as you know we spoke earlier we have the history of having built up industrial capacity around the world. We built up F-16 in the past in Korea, in Turkey and Belgium and The Netherlands, but today they are only built in Texas, so the offer is to take our production line as it is existed in Forth Worth and bring it to India for Indian aircraft, but also for all the aircraft produced from this point forward.
Q: Even after the Indian requirements are met then if India does give you the contract and if they do start buying F-16 from you then even for future you will be supplying these F-16 out of India?
Paranjape: That is correct, what as Randall mentioned what we are looking at is establishing global supply chain that will be centred in India, so the F-16 production line will move to India that means that we will start manufacturing not just assembling the aircraft, but we want to move the entire aircraft as much as we can and we want to start manufacturing in India. Once we start doing that then this becomes the focal point of the F-16s worldwide and future exports will also be handled to the same production line here.
Read more at: http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/cu...ply-chain_7667021.html?utm_source=ref_article
The world's largest defence corporation US-based Lockheed Martin has become the first company to submit letter of interest for supplying F-16 fighter jets to the Indian Airforce, reports CNBC-TV18.
Last week the Ministry of Defence issued a request for information to global OEMs for acquiring single-engine fighter jets to replace the MIG-21s - close on the heels of the Rafale deal.
Lockheed Martin's global team is in India this week and met with various government departments to pitch for the F-16. The company's top executives today told CNBC-TV18 that not only will the company shift its entire F-16 manufacturing line from Texas to India but will export the fighter jets to other countries after India's requirements are met.
Below is the verbatim transcript of Randall L Howard and Abhay Paranjape's interview to Surabhi Upadhyay and Ronojoy Banerjee on CNBC-TV18.
Q: Have you responded to Ministry of Defence request for single engine fighter jets?
Howard: We receive some correspondence from the government late last week and we responded to that and our response went out early this week so very much so we are looking forward to conversation with your government about this acquisition and the opportunity for us.
Q: The one big thing that Lockheed Martin has put on the table is possibly shifting the entire F-16 manufacturing plant from Forth Worth, Texas to India. Tell us a little bit about that?
Howard: Yesterday all our F-16 were built in Forth Worth, Texas as you know we spoke earlier we have the history of having built up industrial capacity around the world. We built up F-16 in the past in Korea, in Turkey and Belgium and The Netherlands, but today they are only built in Texas, so the offer is to take our production line as it is existed in Forth Worth and bring it to India for Indian aircraft, but also for all the aircraft produced from this point forward.
Q: Even after the Indian requirements are met then if India does give you the contract and if they do start buying F-16 from you then even for future you will be supplying these F-16 out of India?
Paranjape: That is correct, what as Randall mentioned what we are looking at is establishing global supply chain that will be centred in India, so the F-16 production line will move to India that means that we will start manufacturing not just assembling the aircraft, but we want to move the entire aircraft as much as we can and we want to start manufacturing in India. Once we start doing that then this becomes the focal point of the F-16s worldwide and future exports will also be handled to the same production line here.
Read more at: http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/cu...ply-chain_7667021.html?utm_source=ref_article
