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"Rafale" delivered to India: mirific contract and controversial compensation
Dassault today delivers his first "Rafale" to the Indian army. An official ceremony is organized on the construction site of the combat aircraft, in Mérignac, in the south-west of France, to celebrate this megacontrol whose multiple implications continue to arouse a lot of questions.
It is especially in India that one wonders again and again about the amount of the invoice . It has been flying since the first abortive contract of 2012. The compensation required by the customer is now almost more expensive than the aircraft. They amount to 3.9 billion euros on a total contract of 8 billion euros. Because as for all sales of this dimension, the supplier has committed to offsets , counterparties, in this case the development of a private aviation industry. The problem, seen from New Delhi, is mainly the beneficiary of these compensations: Reliance, a group without experience in aeronautics, was preferred to the only Indian public company in the sector. Reliance belongs to the businessman Anil Ambani, a close friend of Narendra Modi. The opposition saw a flagrant case of favoritism, and tried to make it a legislative issue in May. Unsuccessfully, Narendra Modi won the elections and he was cleared of all corruption charges.
Are these offsets a transfer of technology ?
It is more an upgrade of local skills than a real transfer of technology. The offsets have become " a fiery obligation " for large contracts over the last forty years, but their results are uneven according to Loïc Tribot La Spière, the director of the Center for Strategic Studies and Foresight. For lack of follow-up, and sometimes of will on the side of the purchaser. On this contract, there are still serious doubts about Reliance Defense's ability to complete its project as it belongs to a moribund group, crumbling under debt. For the moment, the Indian subsidiary insures its part of the contract. In central India, close to Nagpur airport, his factory built with Dassault began producing the nose of the Falcon 2000 . Some parts of the Rafale will be produced on site but the 36 aircraft will be well made and assembled in France. If the amount of the contract and offsets is terrible, the investments that have materialized are more in the hundreds of millions than in billions of euros and Dassault seems to have limited to the minimum the technology transfer desired by the Indians.
The partnership with Reliance is also intriguing because of its links with foreign companies
Our confreres in the world revealed a few days ago the troubling relations between the Ukrainian company Motor Sich and the Indian group Reliance. Motor Sich manufactures aircraft engines, especially for the Ukrainian aircraft manufacturer Antonov, famous for its large aircraft. And Antonov became a Reliance Defense partner on the Nagpur site. Until now everything is fine. The problem is the real identity of Motor Sich. The company actually works mainly with and for Russia and now it is now coveted by the Chinese. A tough intervention by the US administration froze the deal, which nearly ended this summer. A Russian and soon Chinese cuckoo is nestled in the joint venture Reliance Dassault? The risk of leakage, industrial espionage via a subcontractor is real according to Loïc Tribot La Spière, " especially since Ukraine is a true colander " but it is right to keep telling us this specialist in the sector, schizophrenia Dassault is such that it does not depend on any foreign player for the most sensitive parts of these devices.
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