Monday, February 20 2006 20:24 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: France and India today (Feb 20 2006) signed a comprehensive defence agreement that will pave the way for transfer of advanced armament technologies, giving a major boost to strategic bilateral ties.

The Defence cooperation agreement was signed by visiting French Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie and her Indian counterpart Pranab Mukherjee after a summit-level meeting between French President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

France is third country after Russia and United States with which India has signed such a defence cooperation agreement, with the military sales from Paris averaging 300 million to 2 billion Euro's a year, for the past few years.

Under the agreement, the two countries announced setting up of joint committee which would be responsible for defining, organzing and coordinating bilateral cooperation agreements in defence sector.

The committee on the Indian side would be headed by Defence Secretary and by a representative of the French Defence Minister.

After inking the agreement, the Defence Ministers from the two countries held a nearly 45-minute one-to-one meeting which was followed by delegation level talks. The French President is accompanied by Chairman and CEO's of at least six top French armament companies including Dassault aviation, Sencma, Thales and others which already have a huge presence in India.

France, along with Russia, is a major source of weapons supply to India and some French conglormates competing for multi-billion dollar defence deals for sale of helicopters, fighters, radars and other advanced systems.

Defence Ministry Spokesman

A defence ministry spokesman said the agreement seeks to promote cooperation between the two countries in defence and military fields, defence industry, production, research and0 development and procurement of defence material.

"The agreement also establishes a framework which aims to cover all cooperation activities conducted in the field of defence", he said.

These included defence strategic dialogue, professional exchanges, joint exercises, visits and traning, cooperation in the field of defence material and transfer of technology, exchange of views on security threats and global terrorism and exchange of experience in peacekeeping operations.

Though the French defence aircraft major Dassault has withdrawn its Mirage-2000-5 fighter for competing for India's multi-billion Euro project to acquire 126 Multi Role Combat Aircraft (MCRA), the company today said it would pitch for its Rafale Multi role fighter for the deal.

Similarly, French companies are competing with American and Russian ones to bid to augment their helicopter fleet for Army and Air Force. French Radar giant Thales is bidding for civil and military projects to augment radar coverage to overcome landing clutters on Indian airports.