The defence arm of Europe's EADS and India's largest engineering firm, Larsen and Toubro, announced Tuesday a joint venture aimed at tapping into domestic and foreign military markets. The Indian company said the partnership would initially target 250 billion rupees (500 million dollars) in revenue in the next five to seven years.
"The joint venture will focus on design and development of electronic warfare, radar, military avionics and mobile systems for military applications for India and rest of the world," a joint statement said. Stefan Zoller, the CEO of EADS' defence unit, said the venture was already scouring overseas markets for orders as well as seeking to arm India's technology-hungry military.
"The Indian defence and security market is growing fast and we want to grow with it," he said in a separate statement. India, which has bought defence hardware worth 25 billion dollars since 1999, is expected to spend another 30 billion dollars by 2012 for the ongoing modernisation of its military.
India in 2007 scrapped a 600-million dollar helicopter deal with Eurocopter, a EADS unit, amid charges the company allegedly used brokers to clinch the contract despite an Indian ban on the use of middlemen in defence deals. EADS vehemently denied the allegation.