Processing .....please wait.. 
The article has been forwarded.... 
U.S. defense contractors see India as golden goose
By agencies
|
Friday, 01 September 2006, 19:30 IST
WASHINGTON: India's growing economic and strategic ties with the U.S. has been turning into a multibillion dollar opportunity that defense contractors are eyeing at to expand military budget and ageing arsenal, a leading Indian paper reports.
Quoting a leading American newspaper, Times of India said that contracts worth billions of dollars are at stake that could help slowdown Pentagon's weapons spending and could extend its production lines for defense items like the F-16 fighters.
Industry official and analysts are considering India one of the fastest growing, if not the largest defense market, replacing fleets of Soviet-era planes and instead moving into the segment of purchasing new radars and missile systems. This comes when India has a near-term opportunity to buy 126 fighter aircrafts to replace the older Russian MiGs. This is considered one of it's largest ever opportunities, the paper said.
Britain's Eurofighter and Israel's Rafael are being zeroed in upon by Lockheed's F-16 and Boeing's F-18 aircrafts. Calling this the bellwether for India, Joel L. Johnson, an analyst at Teal Group Corp., a Fairfax research firm said that this was an opportunity to realize India's seriousness in purchasing from the U.S. and U.S.'s seriousness in releasing its technology. "It's an estimated market that nobody has the inside track yet, " he said about Teal Group's estimate of India's defense budget that is predicted to cross $23 billion this year, rising from $13 billion in 2000. He said, "The Indians have money, their economy is growing and, so, U.S. companies are guessing that when our own defense budget finally gets crunched, the India market will be profitable."
The deal could extend production lines for Boeing and Lockheed. Lockheed has been laying off several employees gearing up for a demand to dwindle. However, Ron Covais, Vice President for corporate international business development of Lockheed said, "If they (India) pick us to re-capitalize their Air Force, you're talking about 25 years of relationship." Several large contractors of Pentagon, like Boeing and Lockheed, have either opened shops or bettered existing ones in India to woo military officials and business leaders, Times of India said.