Tata partners Airbus to make helicopters as India, France cement ties

New Delhi: The Tata Group and France's Airbus have signed an agreement to manufacture H125 helicopters "with a significant indigenous component" as part of the growing defence industrial partnership between the two countries, Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra said on Friday.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron have firmed up a roadmap for defence industrial partnership roadmap that provides for co-development and co-production of key military hardware and facilitate technology collaboration in a range of areas including space, cyberspace and artificial intelligence, Kwatra said.

The Foreign Secretary was briefing the media on the talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron in Jaipur on Thursday night.

Kwatra further stated that the talks prioritized defence cooperation, with a focus on recognizing opportunities for collaboration in the defence industrial sector, and this involves collaborative design, development, production, and the creation of defence supply chains between the two nations.

He said an MoU was signed between New Space India Ltd and France's Arianespace for cooperation in satellite launches.

PM Modi and President Macron also held discussions on the Israel-Gaza war and its geopolitical fallout including the disruption of shipping in the Red Sea region.

Kwatra said that “the two leaders discussed not just areas of priority and focus in our bilateral partnership, but also focused quite a lot on what's happening in different parts of the world. Naturally, the ongoing conflict in Gaza and its various dimensions, the terror dimension, the humanitarian dimension, the civil disruption dimension, all those things came up for discussion and both leaders shared their perspectives.

"With regard to developments in the Red Sea. Naturally, the disruptions, the potential disruption and the actual things happening in the maritime domain there, which is causing disruption to commercial shipping, indeed is a matter of serious concern and both leaders focused on it," he added.