RIL ties up with Dassault Aviation

Reliance Industries (RIL), India's most-valuable company, and French aircraft manufacturer Dassault Aviation have signed a partnership agreement in defence and internal security sector in the country.

Spokespersons for both companies told PTI, "Dassault Aviation, a major player in the global aerospace industry, has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with RIL, for pursuing strategic opportunities of collaboration in the area of complex manufacturing and support in India."

The MoU comes just two weeks after the Paris-based aircraft manufacturer emerged as the preferred bidder to supply the Indian Air Force with 126 Rafale medium multi-role combat aircrafts (MMRCA) worth up to $15 billion, and entered into an exclusive negotiation with India. (See: Dassault's Rafale bags IAF's $10-billion fighter jet deal)

Under the offset clause of Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) of 2006, the winner of the tender is required to reinvest 50 per cent of the deal amount in the Indian defence industry.

Analysts say that Dassault may have entered into a pact with RIL for manufacturing and support in India, for the MRRCA.

But Dassault had in December 2008, signed a MoU with INCAT's parent company, Tata Technologies, for engineering services outsourcing (ESO) services, where INCAT was to provide Dassault with engineering services in a number of critical domains in support of the MMRCA programme. (See: Dassault Aviation and Tata Technologies sign MoU for MMRCA offsets)