Tata Group to form JV with Israel firm for defence products

NEW DELHI: Homegrown business conglomerate Tatas on Sunday inked an MoU with Israel's largest aerospace and defence company Israel Aerospace Industries to establish a joint venture in India for developing and manufacturing wide range of defence products.

The JV company would be set up by Tata Industries' wholly-owned subsidiary Tata Advanced Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI).

The company would develop, manufacture and support a wide range of defence and aerospace products, including missiles, UAVs, radars, electronic warfare systems and home land security systems.

"We believe the coming together of the Tata and IAI will positively impact the growth of defence industry in India and compliment the efforts of our defence labs, ordnance factory board and defence public sector undertakings," Tata Sons Chairman Ratan Tata said in a statement.

The joint venture would also perform offset work for IAI and aerospace programmes in India, and would establish local indigenous capabilities to support IAI's Indian customers, it added.

This is the fourth major defence deal the Tatas have signed in last few days. The other deals signed by the Tata group companies are with American Aircraft major Boeing, leading helicopter firm Sikorsky and the European Defence and Aerospace Consortium.