India Hopes To Export Tejas, LCH As Argentinian Defence Minister Set To Meet With Rajnath Singh: Report

India may finally sign a deal to export Tejas Mk-1 fighter jet and light combat helicopter (LCH) to Argentina.

Argentinian Defence Minister Jorge Taiana is in India for a visit where he is expected to meet Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday (18 July) to discuss bilateral relations and strengthen co-operation between the two countries.

According to a report by ZeeBusiness, during the meeting, the topic of discussion could include export of Tejas Mk-1 jets and LCH attack helicopters for the Argentinian Air Force.

Argentinian Air Force is looking to buy 15 multi-role fighters to replace its ageing ex-US Marine Corps A-4M Skyhawk fighters.

It is worth noting that the British government has put arms embargo on exporting equipments using British-made parts to Argentina due to the British-Argentine war over Falklands Islands in 1982.

As a result of this, Argentina is unable to procure contemporary multi-role aircrafts.

Apart from the Tejas, the Chinese are also pitching their JF-17 Block-III aircrafts to the Argentinians. The United States is also offering the Argentinian Air Force, refurbished F-16s.

It is expected that Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) will replace UK-made parts of Tejas with indigenous components or from a different entity, which includes the zero-zero ejection seat, made by Martin Baker and radome for housing radar, made by Cobham.

The deal for the 15 Tejas Mk-1A is estimated to cost around Rs 8,000 crore, and the materialisation of this deal may mark the first successful export of the HAL-made Tejas Mk-1 fighter.

Another deal, according to the Zeebusiness report, is of the procurement of HAL built LCH attack helicopters, which is likely to cost around Rs 8,600 crore.

Earlier, in Aero India 2023 as well as DefExpo 2022, the Argentinian Air Force had shown interest in acquiring the Tejas and LCH Prachand attack helicopters.