Aviation giant Boeing on Monday said that it wants to build a globally competitive industrial base in India as the American firm was in “exploratory” talks to see if they can manufacture F/A-18 Super
Aviation giant Boeing on Monday said that it wants to build a globally competitive industrial base in India as the American firm was in “exploratory” talks to see if they can manufacture F/A-18 Super Hornet fighters in the country.
Boeing India president Pratyush Kumar said that the company is not interested in just assembling the aircraft but making it completely under the ‘Make in India’ initiative.
However, he said that at the end of the day, the US and India’s strategic convergence would be critical for any such initiative.
“Offer is too strong a word. There is no such thing as an offer. There is an initial thinking. We want to create a globally competitive industrial base in India,” Mr Kumar said when asked about Boeing’s reported offer to the Indian government to manufacture F/A-18 locally.
He said the company thinks that F/A 18 Super Hornet could be an important wedge to create that scale and get going on defence manufacturing on a very large scale.
“So, in that context, we have had initial dialogue, far from being a formal offer or anything like that,” Kumar said here.
He said that Boeing has had various dialogues, exploratory discussions with different stakeholders.
