NEW DELHI: Defence Minister Rajnath Singh held a bilateral meeting with German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius in New Delhi on Tuesday. The German minister reached India on June 5 for a four-day visit.
The Ministry of Defence in a statement said, “Both ministers reviewed the ongoing bilateral defence cooperation activities and explored ways to enhance the collaboration, particularly defence industrial partnership.”
“Rajnath Singh highlighted the opportunities that have opened up in the defence production sector, including the possibilities for German investments in the two Defence Industrial Corridors in Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. The Indian defence industry could participate in the supply chains of the German defence industry and add value to the ecosystem, besides contributing to supply chain resilience,” added the MoD.
When asked about the status of the ongoing selection process for submarine manufacturing in India, the minister told the accompanying German journalists that talks about a deal on the TKMS (Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems) and about six submarines (Project 75I) are on but the procedure is not finished yet. “I think the German industry is at a good place in that race,” he said.
The Indian Navy is suffering from depleted underwater combat capability. Currently, it has 16 conventional submarines of which 11 are over two decades old.
The request for proposal (RFP) for the Rs 50,000 crore deal was issued over two years back. In January 2020, the Rajnath Singh-chaired Defence Acquisition Council had shortlisted Mazgaon Docks Ltd (MDL) and Larsen & Toubro (L&T) as the Indian partners for the Project-75I deal. Of the five foreign original equipment manufacturers (OEM), France pulled out of the race saying that it did not meet the criteria laid down in the RFPs. According to sources, only Germany and Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (South Korea) meet the criteria to be in the race.
During the talks, Rajnath stressed that India and Germany could build a more symbiotic relationship based on shared goals and complementarity of strengths, namely skilled workforce and competitive costs from India and high technologies and investment from Germany.
India and Germany have had a strategic partnership since 2000, which has been strengthened through inter-governmental consultations since 2011 at the level of heads of government.
The two ministers also had a talk on the Indo-Pacific region and the German minister felt that as the situation there is turning unpredictable, there is a need for strategic partners. Pistorius told the German media, "I think we should and we can and we ought to do more in that region in partnership with India, because we can't really predict what's going to happen in the next few years. We need strategic partners like Indonesia, like India, for example, to make sure that free navigation and free trading routes will be achievable during the next decade too."
Senior officials from the Ministry of Defence, including Defence Secretary Giridhar Aramane and Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan, participated in the delegation-level meeting. From the German side, State Secretary from the Ministry of Defence Benedikt Zimmer was present, apart from senior officials and the German Ambassador to India. This is the first visit of a German Defence Minister to India since 2015.
The bilateral meeting was preceded by a Tri-Service Guard of Honour to the visiting dignitary.
Later in the day, Pistorius interacted with some Indian defence start-ups at IIT Delhi in an event organised by Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX).
On Wednesday, he will be traveling to Mumbai, where he is scheduled to visit the Western Naval Command headquarters and Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited.