AFP, New Delhi: Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh left Sunday for a short visit to France for talks on nuclear energy cooperation, while Paris is hoping for a breakthrough on a long-pending submarine contract.
Indian officials said Singh would meet French President Jacques Chirac, who was released Friday from hospital, as well as Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy on Monday.
In a departure statement Singh said he would convey his government's commitment to further strengthen the “strategic” ties between the two sides.
“It is our intention to further expand cooperation in the fields of trade, investment, defence, space, civilian nuclear energy, advanced science and technology as well as cultural and civilisational ties,” Singh said.
He will leave Paris Tuesday for the UN General Assembly meeting in New York.
The French government hopes Singh will finally announce during his visit an agreement to build six Scorpene submarines in India in partnership with a state-owned French company, a deal that has been six years in the making.
Indian media said Singh's cabinet last week approved the deal — estimated to be worth more than two billion euros (2.48 billion dollars) — with French shipbuilder Naval Constructions Directorate (DCN).
“There is something bound to happen in the very near future, and an announcement will be made at an opportune time,” a senior naval source said.
The diesel-propelled, 1,600-tonne submarines would be built at Mumbai's state-run Mazagaon docks as part of an Indian plan called Project 75 to acquire naval defence knowledge, French government sources said.
As part of the deal, which involves the transfer of French technology through DCN, a subsidiary of the European consortium EADS will sell India 36 SM-39 submarine-to-surface missiles, the sources said.
India also wants French cooperation on civilian nuclear energy, two months after Singh convinced US President George W. Bush to try to persuade Congress to lift sanctions imposed on New Delhi after it tested nuclear weapons in May
India, with its billion-plus population, imports 70 percent of its fuel requirements and with the price of oil hovering around 70 dollars a barrel is now looking urgently for alternative sources of energy, including nuclear.
But because it has not signed the nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT), it is precluded from being assisted in buying civilian nuclear technology from members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, which comprises about 30 countries including Britain, France and the United States.
France, which had welcomed the accord between Singh and Bush, is considered by New Delhi as a potential ally likely to lobby on its behalf with the Nuclear Suppliers Group.
“We want to assist India in its reconciliation with the international community,” said a French diplomatic source in Paris.
“India itself says it is ready for this, which has changed our approach very much. The fact that it has announced this intention potentially opens the way to nuclear cooperation.”
On the economic front, France became India's seventh largest trading partner with a 30 percent rise in exports in 2004 but through French eyes that remains insufficient.
