Bangalore: Lockheed Martin intends to strike agreements this year with Indian firms that can work with it in production and offset requirements connected with the company's products, an executive of the U.S.-based defence major has said.

"Our long-range goal is to form relationships with both publicly and privately owned Indian aerospace and defence companies that can work with us to meet licensed production and offset requirements related to future sales of the F-16 [fighter aircraft] or other Lockheed Martin products," said Orville Prins, company vice-president for Business Development in India, in a statement here on Friday.

"We hope to start this process by establishing some initial agreements this year, independent of any aircraft sales to the Government of India," he said.

On August 21 and 22, representatives of the firm and 15 of its industry team-mates, including BAE Systems, Smiths Aerospace, Elbit and General Electric hosted 59 Indian organisations here in the first Lockheed Martin aerospace and defence suppliers' conference.

Mr. Prins said the purpose of the event was to learn about the capabilities of Indian companies and provide them with information on opportunities to work with Lockheed Martin and its team-mates.

Jindal Group seeks curbs

The Jindal Group has sought restrictions on the export of iron ore from the country to help the domestic steel industry raise production. India currently exports 90 million tonnes of superior-grade iron ore mainly to China, leaving the domestic steel industry with 75 million tonnes of ore to make steel.

The availability of more iron ore could ensure faster expansion of domestic steel producers, Jindal Steel Works (JSW) vice-chairman and managing director Sajjan Jindal told presspersons here on the sidelines of a workshop on `Steel in construction,' while urging the Union Government to come out with an appropriate policy direction in this regard.

The Jindal Group is planning to set up a greenfield steel plant in Jharkhand with a capacity of ten million tonnes. The expansion of the Jindal Vijayanagar steel plant to four million tonnes from 2.5 million tonnes was completed last month and work has started to further expand capacity to seven million tonnes.

Over the next four years the plant will see an investment of around Rs. 20,000 crore to raise capacity to 10 million tonnes.

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