French prime minister Francois Fillone has conceded that his country is in competition with the US with regard to bagging commercial deals for the civilian nuclear plants in India.
"Yes, we are competing with the United States in terms of our nuclear agreement with India," Fillone said on Monday in response to a question at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington-based think tank.
"Let me tell you that this competition will go on to the end. That is to say, until one of us has won -- or both of us maybe. There could be two winners. But we are often competing with the United States," he said after his address to the Carnegie on global economic crisis.
Fillone said this means that both the countries have performing companies. Companies from both the US and France and other major powers are vying for a slice in the pie of what is estimated to be multi-billion dollar market in India.
"In terms of nuclear power, everybody knows that we are very performing. France chose a long, long time ago to use nuclear power. We have never changed. This choice of nuclear power allowed us to constantly improve on the efficiency of our nuclear systems both in terms of security and in terms of financial and energetic yield. We do not regret having made this choice today," Fillone said.
"Of course, we are going to keep on fighting and competing loyally with the United States in order to supply India with nuclear power plants for the future -- and high-speed trains," Fillone said.
"You forgot high-speed trains," the French prime minister said in lighter vein. France is known for its high speed train and is eyeing at India as the Indian Railways plans to enter the next phase of introducing high-speed trains in the country.
Following the successful conclusion of the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal and signing of India-specific safeguard agreements with India, New Delhi is now planning to thousands of megawatts of nuclear power in the next decade. It has already conveyed a letter of intent up to 10,000 MW of nuclear power reactors in India. This is expected to translate into a business of USD 150 billion worth of projects for US companies.
