Lockheed Martin intends to strike deals this year with Indian firms that could work with it in production and offset requirements relating to the company products, an executive of the US-based defence major said."Our long-range goal is to form relationships with both publicly and privately-owned Indian aerospace and defence companies that could work with us to meet licensed production and offset requirements related to future sales of the F-16 or other Lockheed Martin products," Orville Prins, India business development (VP) for Lockheed Martin, said."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 in an official release today.On August 21 and 22, representatives of the New York Stock Exchange-listed firm and 15 of its industry teammates, including BAE Systems, Smiths Aerospace, Elbit, and General Electric, hosted 59 Indian organisations here in the first Lockheed Martin aerospace and defence supplier conference.Prins said the purpose of the event was to learn about the capabilities of Indian companies and provide them information on potential opportunities to work with Lockheed Martin and its industry teammates.The participating Indian entities included engineering, IT and manufacturing firms, as well as leading Indian industry organisations, according to the statement."We were impressed with the range of capabilities presented by the Indian aerospace and defence sector, as we met with the Indian companies and collected data that can be used for follow-up later," Prins said.
