General Electric (GE) has secured a deal to manufacture fighter jet engines for the Indian Air Force. The agreement was made as President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a meeting.
As the GE Aerospace of the United States on Thursday announced the signing of a deal with the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited of India to produce fighter jet engines, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said after a meeting with President Joe Biden that closer defence cooperation reflected growing trust between the two nations.
The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between GE Aerospace and HAL is one ofthe significant outcomes of the Prime Minister’s official state visit to the US. It marks a change in the US policy, which prevented it from sharing advanced defence technologies with a non-NATO country like India.
Modi said that the deal would create jobs in both India and the US.
The two biggest democracies of the world, India and the US, can contribute towards global peace, stability and prosperity.
“For the partnership between India and the US, even the sky is not the limit,” the Prime Minister said. “The challenges and opportunities facing the world in this century require that India and the US work and lead together,” said Biden, describing the ties between the two nations as “one of the most defining” relationships in the 21st century.
Just hours after Modi and Biden had a private engagement at the White House, GE Aerospace announced the deal, which would pave the way for the US conglomerate and the HAL to jointly produce the F414 jet engines to power the Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Mk2 fleet of the Indian Air Force (IAF).
The deal comes amid a renewed push by the US to step up defence cooperation with India with a newfound willingness to share advanced military technologies with the South Asian nation in order to lessen its reliance on Russia. It also signals New Delhi’s keenness to take its ties with the US to a new level amid China’s growing belligerence across the Indo-Pacific region, particularly against India along the disputed boundary between the two nations in the Himalayas.
During Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s state visit to the US, GE Aerospace has signed an MoU with HAL to produce fighter jet engines for the Indian Air Force (IAF).
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