Thursday, February 10 2005 21:59 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Bangalore: India's premier Aircraft maker Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), today said that it plans to aggressively market its products and capabilities in the international market and also explore new avenues in the service and maintenance sectors.

Talking to media-persons in a conference during the ongoing Aero India 2005, HAL Chairman Baweja said that HAL seeks partnerships across the globe to synergise the resources in the design sector.

Revealing ambitious future plans of HAL, he said that the company intends to use its infrastructure and talented manpower resources to offer up-gradation and servicing facilities to companies like Boeing, Airbus Industrie etc and was confident that this offer would be a success owing to its cost and time effectiveness.

Expressing confidence that HAL will be a competent solution provider, Baweja said, "We are in the evolution stage of a fifth generation Fighter aircraft and we see ourselves much above companies like BAe systems".

Talking about a global partnership project, he said HAL is doing project analysis of a Sukhoi Design project in association with eight other companies and are expecting a slice of the global avionics market. The project involves design and development of three different types of aircrafts, viz; 60-seater, 75-seater and a 95-seater.

If this project gets underway, HAL is confident of having a 10-16 per cent market share of the aircraft market in this class, which has an immediate requirement of a few thousand aircrafts.