NEW DELHI, Feb 8: Global armament and aerospace firms are flocking to India which is offering rich pickings in military contracts worth tens of billions of dollars despite an economic slowdown.

The hardware-hungry military says it cannot cut defence spending despite the slowdown in India which is suffering the knock-on effects of the global financial crisis.

“Yes, there’s the economic turmoil but India’s defence programmes will continue as before,” Defence Production Secretary Pradeep Kumar said.

“There’s no scaling down of the modernisation of the armed forces,” he said, announcing 303 international firms will hawk their wares at a Feb 11-15 air show to be held in Bangalore, hub of India’s aerospace industry.

India, the biggest weapons buyer among emerging countries, has imported military hardware worth $28 billion since 2000.

It has earmarked another $30 billion to be spent by 2010 that includes $12 billion on 126 fighter jets for which six global aeronautical giants are in the running.Nuclear-armed India says it is “fast-tracking” all defence procurement negotiations amid heightened tensions with Pakistan following the massacre last November of 165 people in Mumbai by 10 gunmen that New Delhi says were helped by “official Pakistani agencies.”

Leading the pack of international companies at the show will be Germany and France with 31 companies each. Twenty-six British, 24 Russian and 22 US firms will also be at the show along with 289 Indian defence firms, organisers said.

“India’s rapidly growing aerospace and defence industry offers significant opportunities for growth and productivity,” said Ian Thomas, India president of US giant Boeing, a frontrunner for the 126-warplane deal.

Lockheed Martin is also in competition for the world’s richest fighter aircraft contract in 16 years. And the US-based firm hopes to replace India’s fleet of Soviet-era military transport planes, having last year secured an initial deal worth nearly one billion dollars for six Hercules aircraft.

“We do know that the Indian air force’s transport capabilities are gradually diminishing... and that they have to do something about it soon,” said Lockheed India’s CEO Douglas Hartwick.

Lockheed grabbed the 962-million-dollar Indian air force deal for six Hercules transport planes last March but Boeing in January trumped that with a 2.1-billion-dollar contract to sell eight surveillance aircraft to the domestic navy.

The Indian air force is the world’s fourth largest.

“We’re in the process of acquiring whatever more assets we require as the government has sanctioned practically all that we are asking for,” Air Chief Marshal Fali Major said.

The military plans to buy 700 helicopters worth $3.5 billion by 2018.

US-based Bell Helicopter, which will attend the show, said it was aiming to double its figure of 100 civilian helicopters sold to India.

“Our next major milestone is to see the fleet of 100 choppers double in the next five years,” Bell spokesman Greg Hubbard told the air show’s official website.

Hubbard said the company was currently not in the race to sell military helicopters to India.

Israel, which replaced France in 2007 as India’s second-largest defence supplier after Russia, will send its top 10 armament firms to Bangalore, including Rafael, which last September grabbed a $260 million air defence missile contract.—AFP