Bengaluru: Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and Rolls-Royce have signed an agreement for Make-in-India Adour engine parts to support Rolls-Royce's international defence customer base. The agreement has been exchanged between HAL's Executive Director (Engine & IMGT) B Krishna Kumar and Rolls Royce's Senior Vice President (Defence, India and South East Asia) Abhishek Singh in Bengaluru on Tuesday.
As per the official statement of HAL, through this partnership, Rolls-Royce aims to strengthen the ecosystem for Adour engines in India by building on HAL's existing capabilities for manufacturing and supporting the Adour engines for Indian customers over several decades. This follows the MoU signed by Rolls-Royce and HAL during the Aero India 2021 to establish an Authorized Maintenance Centre for Adour at HAL to support international military customers and operators.
On the occasion, HAL's Chairman & Managing Director (CMD) R Madhavan said, "With over 30 years experience of supporting repair and maintenance services for the Adour engines in India, HAL has the capability and capacity to support a large defence customer base. This is the first order for the supply of spares for the Adour Global Supply chain. We plan to be a key player in the supply chain of Adour engines and expect more orders to follow. We look forward to working with Rolls-Royce to build on this capability to serve the global market for the supply of spares and MRO of Adour engines. This new partnership will create avenues for the two companies to expand the defence sourcing footprint in India."
Commenting on the partnership with HAL, Jayaraman said, "Our valued partnership with HAL has grown from strength to strength over the last few decades and this is a significant step towards strengthening the defence manufacturing ecosystem in India and to help catapult India's vision for the defence sector to 'make in India' for the world."
Alex Zino, Executive Vice President – Business Development and Future Programmes (Defence) said, "We are excited to expand our long-standing partnership with HAL to support long term sustainment of our Adour engines for both Indian and global customers. We believe that HAL's expertise in manufacturing and supporting Adour engines will pave the way for several of our customers to successfully operate the Adour engines for many more years. This is our first defence supplies agreement in India and creates an opportunity for India to increase its defence exports given the robust demand forecast for high precision components in this sector."
HAL's Director (Finance) CB Ananthakrishnan, Director (Operations) MS Velpari and CEO (Bangalore Complex) Amitabh Bhatt were also present on the occasion.
(Defence Watch– India's Defence Business News centre that places the spotlight on Defence Manufacturing, Defence Technology, Strategy and Military affairs is on Twitter. Follow us here and stay updated.)