HAL plans to set up bases outside country

New Delhi, March 8

State-run aerospace behemoth Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) is looking at setting up logistics bases in Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia and Sri Lanka as part of initiatives to woo the countries to buy India’s light combat aircraft Tejas and military helicopters.

Chairman and Managing Director of HAL R Madhavan said the HAL is considering to build logistics bases in the four countries as they use a number of Russian-origin military aircraft and choppers whose serviceability is “very poor”.

He said the HAL is now seriously focusing on boosting exports in sync with the government’s priority and identified South East Asia, West Asia and North Africa to sell key platforms like Tejas, attack helicopter Rudra and advanced light helicopter Dhruv.

Last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set an ambitious defence export target of $5 billion dollars in the next five years and asked all the key military manufacturers to work hard to achieve the target.

“We are looking at setting up maintenance facilities in Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Sri Lanka. We can give them a lot of support to as these countries use lot of platforms which are common to India, and their serviceability is very poor,” the HAL top executive said. — PTI