Qatar
British company enters new bid for fighter planes
British company enters new bid for fighter planes
By Salman Siddiqui/Staff Reporter
The British multinational defence company BAE Systems has entered a new bid for the Typhoon in its ongoing efforts to supply the Emiri Air Force with the latest fighter jets, Alan Garwood, group business development director, has told Gulf Times. |
“We have recently completed the latest round of the tender. It’s actually on schedule. The Qatar authorities had been waiting for one or two bids by the end of last year; we understand that one of our competitors (in the US) had asked for some more time. So, we came here and just put in a new bid,” he said.
He added that BAE Systems was up against competition from all over the world. “Now we are waiting for the Qatari authorities to make their decision…These things take a long time since they involve complex decisions. The Qatar authorities have literally just got all the information (from all bidders from all over the world).”
Garwood admitted that unlike the relationship with other countries in the Middle East, so far his company has had small achievements in Qatar, including the supply of a few ships that too through a company that BAE Systems had acquired five-six years ago.
He hoped that this would change soon. “The relationship between Qatar and the United Kingdom is already at an all-time high. A major defence contract would be even better for that relationship, especially for the Royal and Emiri air forces.”
He said that there was “lots we can do” in Qatar. “We’ve got a comprehensive range of equipment and services that BAE Systems can provide. It’s not just the Typhoon, we are UK’s number one maker of warships and armoured vehicles.”
The company on the whole has around 60 years of experience in the Gulf region. The BAE Systems’ Hawk aircraft is already “all over the Gulf,” including in Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, Oman, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
About the presence of Typhoon in the region, he termed the Saudi Arabia “Salam deal” a huge success for BAE Systems, when the Gulf state agreed to buy 72 Eurofighter jets in 2007.
Recently, when Prince Charles visited the Saudi state, it marked the “end of serious of negotiations to adjust the price of the jets to current economic levels,” he said, without disclosing the exact amount of the multi-billion dollar deal.
“Oman too has bought 12 Typhoons and we’ll start delivery in a few years’ time,” he said.
About not being able to conclude a deal with the UAE, he insisted that it had nothing to do with the quality or performance of the Typhoon. “In Abu Dhabi, the reason they didn’t proceed had nothing to do with the airplane at all. They had a set of very discreet requirements that added a lot of developments to the programme. They specified an airplane that was quite fantastic, but at the end of the day their budget wouldn’t allow them to proceed with that … so it was a budgetary decision.”
He said that the company was also looking into selling the aircraft to Bahrain. “It is down to the king of Bahrain now. He has given a number of statements saying that he would like to join the Typhoon family…We have not yet gone into negotiations with Bahraini authorities.”
He added that there was currently an evaluation on the Typhoon going on in Kuwait as well.
He termed the capability of the Typhoon as incredible, which was last year also demonstrated on the Corniche as part of the Red Arrow acrobatic air show.
He gave the example of its deployment in Libya recently, where it “never went wrong” and the Royal Airforce suffered no casualties.