BackBoeing chairman pitches making jets in India in return for orders
Boeing expects India to announce bids to buy more fighter jets and the company would be happy to make a facility in India that will produce those fighter jets
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New Delhi: Boeing Co. announced on Friday that it is considering assembling military helicopters in India and also offered to build a facility that can produce fighter jets in the country.
Boeing chairman Jim McNerney, who is currently on a visit to India, has overseen a decade in which India has placed record orders with the Chicago-headquartered firm.
Boeing has won orders estimated at more than $15 billion during these years after India and the US reached a civilian nuclear deal in 2005, making some of those military sales possible.
Last month alone, Prime Minister Narendra Modi cleared a plan to buy Boeing’s Apache and Chinook heavy-lift helicopters before leaving for the US.
McNerney said the firm is considering assembling one of these helicopters in India.
And it wants more orders.
Boeing expects India to announce bids to buy more fighter jets and the company would be happy to make a facility in India that will produce those fighter jets.
But that promise will likely be linked to Boeing winning that multi-billion dollar order.
“It’s a strategic bet that we would make to get more business and that India would make to get more knowhow," McNerney said. “And I wanna play."
India has been pushing foreign manufacturers to transfer technology and manufacture in the country, but has struggled in this process.
McNerney remained cautious on this front. “The more cutting edge the technology," he said, “the less the chances that it will be shared."
To be sure, several foreign aircraft manufacturers have offered to build their fighter planes in India after the Modi government scrapped the global tender for 126 medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA).
While India is in talks with France for a formal agreement for the off-the-shelf purchase of 36 Rafale jets, the Indian Air Force wants at least six more MMRCA-type squadrons.
Most of the orders that Boeing has won, including an $11 billion plane order for Air India and a P-8 maritime reconnaissance aircraft, comes with a 30% offset clause attached to it.
Meanwhile, an analyst said that while some big orders have been placed, transfer of technology was key for India.
“He (McNerney) has come at a time when the US-India relationship is at its peak—Prime Minister Modi has just finished a US trip—so this is a great time for American companies to be in India to tap partnerships, whether in defence or in aviation," said Delhi-based defence commentator and analyst Neelam Mathews, “One hopes more transfer of technology will head India’s way."
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