UPBEAT NOTE STRUCK BY GIFAS
CHIEF JEAN-PAUL BECHAT

Asian Aerospace 2000 -- Export business accounts for 76% of the $26 billion annual revenues now earned by the French aerospace industry, GIFAS president and Snecma boss Jean-Paul Bechat told the press here yesterday. This proportion has grown rapidly in recent years and looks certain to grow further, he said.

Show host Singapore accounts for 30% of the industry's South-East Asia business and was the seat of a number of joint ventures involving French and local firms, Bechat added.

With 30 French companies occupying some 1,500 square meters of the exhibition halls, together with the largest ever French military participation spearheaded by the Rafale multirole fighter, there can be no mistaking the importance France attaches to this year's Asian Aerospace -- a show it has traditionally supported well.

The reason for the enhanced emphasis is both clear and audible - the Rafale itself, for which a full-scale regional sales campaign is now underway with the Taiwanese and South Korean air forces as the prime targets, and others -- including the RAAF and the RepSAF -- seen as potential customers in the longer term.

Bechat expressed confidence that SE Asia's recent economic woes will have done little lasting harm and that the region is already returning to substantial growth. He stressed the area's importance to the sales health of the French aerospace industry.

There are more than 900 Airbus airliners flying with Asian carriers, many of them powered by his own company's engines, Bechat said, pointing to the number of partnerships and joint ventures in which French companies have engaged with Singaporean firms in recent years.

Sitting beside him, the eminence gris of the French aerospace industry, fighter and bizjet builder Serge Dassault, said remarkably little other than to remark pointedly, and to laughter, that although the Rafale is in full production and is flying in the airshow on its Singapore debut, "I don't see the Eurofighter Typhoon at all."

By Bob Rodwell