TIL Desk/National/New Delhi/ Dassault clarified on Wednesday that it had “freely chosen” India’s Reliance Group for a partnership to set up joint-venture Dassault Reliance Aerospace Ltd (DRAL) to manufacture parts for Rafale aircraft and Falcon 2000 business jets. In a report, Dassault further confirmed that “it has sold 36 Rafale aircraft to India within the framework of the September 2016 Inter-Government Agreement between France and India”.
The aviation company also mentioned that it created the joint venture to deliver the offsets committed to India. “In compliance with the Indian regulations (Defence Procurement Procedure) and as frequent with such a contract, Dassault Aviation has committed to offsets in India worth 50 percent of the value of the purchase”, the release read.
“In order to deliver some of these offsets, Dassault Aviation has decided to create a joint venture. Dassault Aviation has freely chosen to make a partnership with India’s Reliance Group”, they further added while stating that DRAL was created on February 10, 2017.
The statement further stated that the Central Works Council was informed about the creation of DRAL on May 11, 2017 by the Chief Operating Officer Loik Segalen, in compliance with French regulations. Dassault also said that “negotiations are ongoing with a hundred-odd other potential partners” and also confirmed that other partnerships have been signed with companies like “BTSL, DEFSYS, Kinetic, Mahindra, Maini, SAMTEL.”
