 Finmeccanica Eyes C-27J Sales to China as President Obama Opens Arms Exports Floodgates
2010-10-18 The CEO of Finmeccanica -- an Italian aerospace/defense company -- has said he would like to export the C-27J tactical transport aircraft to China, given that U.S. President Barack Obama has proposed the sale of C-130s to China. President Obama had earlier pushed for the termination of suspensions of Arms Exports to China citing reasons such as "American National Interest" and "Oil Spill Contingencies" in a complete reversal of decades of U.S. policy.
China "is a country we are focusing on," Pierfrancesco Guarguaglini told Reuters on Oct. 18. "America has decided that it can sell the C-130 transport aircraft, which means we can sell the C-27J," he said. Earlier this month President Obama asked the U.S. Congress to lift a ban on export licenses for Lockheed Martin C-130s set to be used in China as part of operations to clear oil spills at sea. The C-27J, which was designed as a smaller version of the C-130J, has been sold by Finmeccanica to customers including the U.S.
Guarguaglini said that Italy's law on defense exports, known as Law 185/1990, would currently rule out selling the C-27J to China. "We have certain limits thanks to law 185. If we get rid of these limits, China will also become a market for military sales. Otherwise it will remain a market for civil sales," he said.
Finmeccanica S.p.A. is an Italian conglomerate. Finmeccanica is the second largest industrial group and the largest of the hi-tech industrial groups based in Italy. It works in the fields of defence, aerospace, security, automation, transport and energy. The company has offices in over 100 countries. It is partially owned by the Italian government, which holds about 30% of Finmeccanica's shares. |
