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INDIA

India approves $2.4 billion French jet upgrade

India has approved a $2.4-billion deal for French defence groups to upgrade 51 ageing Mirage fighter jets, officials said Thursday, as the country takes further steps to boost its military capacity.

Published: 14 July 2011 10:38 CEST

The long-delayed deal is part of a major modernisation programme being undertaken by India, which has become the biggest importer of military hardware among emerging nations as it enjoys rapid economic development.

“The defence secretary has agreed to the proposal put forward by French defence majors Dassault and Thales and (European group) MBDA for the Mirage-2000 retrofit,” a source in the Indian Air Force (IAF) told AFP.

The upgrade of the French-built Mirage jets is expected to include advanced navigation systems, mission computers, electronic warfare systems and radars.

The work is likely to take nine years and will see two of the Mirages being re-fitted in France, said the source who declined to be named.

Other aircraft will be upgraded at the state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics base in Bangalore.

No confirmation of the deal was released by the Indian government, but the Press Trust of India news agency quoted a defence ministry official saying that the decision was cleared on Wednesday by the cabinet committee on security.

The overhaul of the fleet will add 20-25 years to the life of the Mirages, which were introduced to the Indian air force in the mid-1980s.

The deal had been stuck for five years due to differences over costs and the intended benefits to the IAF, which is also finalising a $12 billion deal to buy 126 new combat aircraft.

The IAF has argued that the Mirage upgrade was good value as it will transform the aircraft into cutting-edge combat fighters.

“The Mirage 2000 is the most important aircraft in the air force’s fleet after the Sukhoi-30,” former IAF chief Air Chief Marshal Fali Major told the Hindustan Times.

He said the upgrade was “crucial” as it would be years before the new planes from the planned $12 billion deal would be inducted.

India in February boosted military spending to 1.65 trillion rupees ($36 billion) for the financial year to March 2012 from 1.47 trillion rupees the previous year.

International consultancy firm KPMG estimates New Delhi will hand out military contracts worth $112 billion by 2016.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute think tank, India over the last five years was the world’s biggest importer of weapons.

The country is upgrading its million-plus military with hardware worth tens of billions of dollars because of its long-standing tensions with regional rivals China and Pakistan.

It has also begun honing homeland security since the 2008 attacks by Islamist gunmen which left 166 people killed in India’s financial capital Mumbai.

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FARMING

WTO rules US tariffs on Spanish olives breach rules

A US decision to slap steep import duties on Spanish olives over claims they benefited from subsidies constituted a violation of international trade rules, the World Trade Organisation ruled Friday.

Published: 22 November 2021 11:34 CET
WTO rules US tariffs on Spanish olives breach rules
Farmers had just begun harvesting olives in southern Spain when former US President Donald Trump soured the mood with the tariffs' announcement. Photo: Jorge Guerrero/AFP

Former US president Donald Trump’s administration slapped extra tariffs on Spain’s iconic agricultural export in 2018, considering their olives were subsidised and being dumped on the US market at prices below their real value.

The combined rates of the anti-subsidy and anti-dumping duties go as high as 44 percent.

The European Commission, which handles trade policy for the 27 EU states, said the move was unacceptable and turned to the WTO, where a panel of experts was appointed to examine the case.

In Friday’s ruling, the WTO panel agreed with the EU’s argument that the anti-subsidy duties were illegal.

But it did not support its stance that the US anti-dumping duties violated international trade rules.

The panel said it “recommended that the United States bring its measures into conformity with its obligations”.

EU trade commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis hailed the ruling, pointing out that the US duties “severely hit Spanish olive producers.”

Demonstrators take part in a 2019 protest in Madrid, called by the olive sector
Demonstrators take part in a 2019 protest in Madrid called by the olive sector to denounce low prices of olive oil and the 25 percent tariff that Spanish olives and olive oil faced in the United States. (Photo by PIERRE-PHILIPPE MARCOU / AFP)
 

“We now expect the US to take the appropriate steps to implement the WTO ruling, so that exports of ripe olives from Spain to the US can resume under normal conditions,” he said.

The European Commission charges that Spain’s exports of ripe olives to the United States, which previously raked in €67 million ($75.6 million) annually, have shrunk by nearly 60 percent since the duties were imposed.

The office of the US Trade Representative in Washington did not immediately comment on the ruling.

According to WTO rules, the parties have 60 days to file for an appeal.

If the United States does file an appeal though, it would basically amount to a veto of the ruling.

That is because the WTO Appellate Body — also known as the supreme court of world trade — stopped functioning in late 2019 after Washington blocked the appointment of new judges.

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