Agencies/London
British Prime Minister David Cameron said yesterday that India’s decision to choose France’s Dassault Aviation over Eurofighter as preferred bidder for a $15bn war plane contract was disappointing and he would urge India to reconsider. “Of course I will do everything I can, as I have already, to encourage the Indians to look at Typhoon (Eurofighter) because I think it is such a good aircraft,” Cameron told parliament. “The decision is obviously disappointing but it is about who the Indians have assessed as making the lowest bid and therefore asked to enter into further negotiations. They have not yet awarded the contract,” he added. He said he did not expect any job losses in Britain as a result of the decision and said “it doesn’t rule out Typhoon for India.” “We must go on making the case. This (Eurofighter) is a superb aircraft with far better capabilities than Rafale and we will try and encourage the Indians to take that view,” he added. Rafale, made by Dassault, emerged yesterday as preferred bidder in the contest to supply India with 126 warplanes. While exclusive talks are not a guarantee of sale, they deal a probable knockout blow to Rafale’s chief rival in India, the Eurofighter Typhoon, a fighter plane developed by a consortium of four European aviation companies - the German and Spanish branches of EADS, Britain’s BAE Systems and Italy’s Finmeccanica. Cameron’s spokesman said Britain would look very carefully at why India took the decision to make Dassault the preferred bidder. “We will want to learn from that,” he told reporters. Talks between France and India over the fighter jet sale should be wrapped up within six to nine months, French government spokeswoman Valerie Pecresse said yesterday. “It needs to be finalised, but the French offer is the most competitive and that has been recognised by our partners,” Pecresse said, after President Nicolas Sarkozy hailed the deal at a cabinet meeting. If concluded, the contract would mark the first time the jet had found an export partner, despite being in service with the French military since 1998 and having proved itself in several conflicts. But analysts say Dassault’s initial euphoria at the selection of its Rafale fighter will soon be tempered by the realities of what lies ahead before the deal can be signed and sealed. “Negotiations for industrial co-operation remain, and these will likely be difficult. India is very demanding in terms of the level of participation it expects for local industry,” said Endre Lunde, a defence expert with Jane’s Defence Weekly. The contract for the medium multi-role combat jets comes with a 50% offset clause, meaning Dassault must source half the total value of the deal from the Indian defence industry. India enshrined the offset clause as policy for all major defence deals in 2003 - a move largely aimed at gaining expertise in advanced defence-related technologies. The pledge of significant technology transfers was a key part of the Dassault bid - a fact underlined by Sarkozy after news of the Rafale’s victory broke. “The negotiation of the contract will begin very soon with the full support of French authorities. It will include major transfers of technology guaranteed by the French state,” Sarkozy said. Turning such pledges into a mutually acceptable agreement will not necessarily be easy. The tendered contract is for the outright purchase of 18 combat aircraft by 2012 with another 108 to be built in India with options to acquire more. “The devil, as always, will be in working out the details,” said Lunde. “The ambition has to become a reality, and some companies have found this very tricky with India in the past.” Indian defence procurement has traditionally been an opaque business, marred by postponements and repeated re-negotiations over cost. The tender for the 126 multi-role combat aircraft already has a history of delays. Originally slated for 2005, the procurement process was only cleared in 2007 and flight evaluations of the initial six proposals did not begin until two years later. And Dassault’s record in exporting the Rafale is a troubled one. It has come close to selling the aircraft to Brazil and Switzerland, but failed to secure a contract. The United Arab Emirates was reportedly in final negotiations to buy 60 Rafale when, in June last year, it invited the European consortium behind the Eurofighter Typhoon to submit a counter-offer, saying Dassault’s terms were “uncompetitive and unworkable.”