NEW DELHI: Concerned over falling armaments sales to India over the past two years, a high-level French defence delegation is coming here for interaction with top Indian officials.
Thierry Borja de Mozota, representative of the French Defence Minister, is leading the delegation for the two-day meeting of the Indo-French High Committee on Defence Cooperation, beginning on Monday. Defence Secretary Vijay Singh is the co-chairman of Committee.
The meeting comes days after India scrapped a nearly one billion dollar international tender for purchase of 197 helicopters for the army in which the European Consortium EADS was the leading contender. The French as well as the German governments have protested the cancellation of the tender.
"Defence-related activities such as joint exercises, high-level visits, transfer of technology and activities relating to co-development and co-production of armament platforms will figure at the meeting," a Defence Ministry spokesman said.
France, after Russia, was the second major arms seller to India, with weapons sales to New Delhi almost touching four billion euro in 2005, but recently Israel have displaced it.
The meeting of the Indo-French committee comes in the backdrop of another European defence consortium Thales bidding for a 1.2 billion euro contract to upgrade the Indian Air Force's 52 Mirage-2000 fighters.
The deal is under scrutiny of the Cabinet Committee on Security. French aviation giant Dassault is also one of the leading contenders for India's 10 billion dollar contract to acquire 126 multi-role combat aircraft.
French companies are major contenders for Indian army, Navy and Air Force's plans to turn network-centric and purchase state-of-the-art radars.
Along with the meeting of the high committee, three sub-committees on military cooperation, which have representatives from three services and integrated defence services, will also be holding joint interaction. Among the sub-committees are one dealing with strategic exchanges and other on defence industry procurements.
