Summary: Prime Minister David Cameron has stated that the UK is in with a chance of securing lucrative defence contracts with the United Arab Emirates.
The contracts for 60 Eurofighter Typhoon jets could be a multibillion-pound agreement and would secure UK investment, jobs and provide a boost to the UK defence industry and economy as a whole.
Defence manufacturing boost
BAE Systems is facing competition from French firm Dassault for the contract. The deal would be a major boost for the defence manufacturer after a recent run of bad fortune, including the collapse of a merger with EADS, large job losses and reductions in output arising from a lack of demand.
The deal would also help the UK defence industry in the long term. Mr Cameron said: “I continue to support Typhoon around the world, which is doing extremely well and is clearly in the running here as well, so there’s a lot of jobs, a lot of investment to be garnered from visits like this.”
Civilian and defence aerospace benefits
He continued: “We have some of the strongest controls on defence exports of any country in the world, but let’s be clear there are 230,000 jobs in British aerospace, both civilian and defence aerospace.
“It’s the second best and biggest aerospace industry anywhere in the world and I think it’s very important to stand up for those British jobs, that investment that we can bring from trading with countries like the one I’m standing in today.”
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