EADS plans R&D centre in B'lore, to hire 200 engineers

European military consortium EADS Defence and Security today said it will open a research and development centre in Bangalore within two years that will provide employment to 200 Indian engineers.

The R&D centre would come up irrespective of the result of EADS' bids for the $10 billion Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) tenders, EADS Defence and Security Chief Executive Officer (Military Air Systems) Bernhard Gerwert said at the DefExpo here.

"EADS looks at India not in short term goals. We already have a EADS Airbus Engineering Centre at Bangalore. The target is to shift some of our R&D units from Europe to Bangalore and set up a new R&D centre here to employ up to 200 engineers," Gerwert said.

The MMRCA deal entails that the successful bidder should plough back 50 per cent of the contract amount back into India under the offsets clause.

EADS' Eurofighter Typhoon, a swing-role combat jet produced by Germany, Italy, Britain and Spanish companies, is competing in the bid and is scheduled to go in for flight trials in Bangalore beginning next week.

The fighter jet, which is already in service with British, Spanish, Italian, German, Austrian and Saudi Arabian air force, would undergo weapons trials in Germany and Britain later this year.