“In full compliance with this regulation, Dassault Aviation decided to set up the DRAL joint venture with Reliance and build a plant in Nagpur, which should enable us to meet about 10 per cent of these offset obligations. We are in negotiations with about a hundred Indian companies and partnerships have already been concluded with about thirty of them,” Trappier said.

He again made it clear that Dassault Aviation, which manufactures the Rafale jets, chose its offset partner. “The reference is the contract we signed and which is called ‘offset contract’. With regard to the staff and trades unions organisations, Dassault Aviation uses the term ‘obligation contractuelle d’offse’ or ‘obligation contractuelle de compensation’. 

“Signing an offset contract is a requirement of Indian law (Defence Procurement Procedure). The implementation of offsets is an obligation and, under the Indian regulation, the choice of the partners belongs to us,” he said.

Trappier said Dassault Aviation decided to establish a long-term presence in India through Dassault Reliance Aerospace Limited (DRAL), a joint enterprise in which governance is provided by an Indian CEO and a French COO.

He said Dassault Aviation exercises technical and industrial control over the operations, applying its standards and its flexibility.

 

“This JV will produce parts for the Falcon 2000 and Rafale. The choice of the Nagpur site was dictated by the availability of land with direct access to an airport runway,” he said.

On the controversies in India surrounding the deal, Trappier said controversies are always unfortunate “but we remain calm”.

“Things are progressing rapidly. We set up DRAL on February 10, 2017, and the plant project was officially launched on October 27, 2017,” he said.

The first phase of the project involves building a temporary hangar to house the production tools and enable staff training to begin as rapidly as possible and it was completed in March 2018. “Activities began on April 18 in the presence of senior executives from Dassault Aviation and the local authorities. We hired an Indian CEO Sampathkumaran ST, with over 20 years’ experience in the aeronautical industry. The first Falcon 2000 parts should roll off the line at the year end,” he said.