Rajnath Singh with his French counterpart
Paris: In his final leg of visit to two countries, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Wednesday visited a jet engine manufacturing facility of French firm Safran near Paris and witnessed latest developments in aero-engine technology.
Singh's visit to the facility at Gennevilliers assumed significance as Safran is looking at co-developing a fighter aircraft engine in India under a mega project.
The defence minister is visiting France after concluding his trip to Italy.
Singh also interacted with a group of CEOs of top French defence companies in Paris and highlighted to them the advantages of co-development and co-production of defence hardware in India that he said could be exported to third countries.
He also conducted the 5th Annual Defence Dialogue with French Minister of Armed Forces Sebastien Lecornu in Paris, before concluding his two-nation Europe tour.
The two Ministers discussed a wide range of topics from the assessment of regional situation to the ongoing military-to-military engagements, with a focus on enhancing defence industrial cooperation.
The Ministers reviewed the ongoing defence projects and discussed ways to deepen the collaboration between the defence industries of both the countries.
They also discussed potential collaboration in niche domains such as space, cyber and Artificial Intelligence.
The meeting was preceded by a Guard of Honour at the French Ministry of Defence.
During his stay at Safran facility, Rajnath Singh highlighted the advantages of co-development and co-production in India, including possibilities of exports to third countries.
He underlined the inherent advantages of the Indian market such as a large, skilled HR base, world-class infrastructure and a strong legal architecture.
In the first leg of his two-nation tour, he held talks with Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto in Rome.
An Agreement on Cooperation in the field of defence was signed after the talks to promote bilateral collaboration in varied defence domains, such as security and defence policy, R&D, education in military field, maritime domain awareness, sharing of defence information and industrial cooperation, including co-development, co-production & setting up of joint ventures. He also met with the CEOs and other top industry leaders of Italian defence companies in Rome, as part of his visit.
