Daewoo in, SAAB out of submarine tender

4 other companies have shown interest

Testing the waters: The Scorpene submarine Khanderi to be inducted into the Navy on Saturday.

The Swedish defence major SAAB has pulled out of the contest to supply the Navy with six advanced conventional submarines under Project-75I. South Korea’s Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering has made a last-minute entry, official sources said.

The Navy on September 24 opened the responses from the original equipment manufacturers to its expression of interest. SAAB informed the Defence Ministry that it could not take part in the tender, and Daewoo Shipbuilding was given the last-minute invite to submit its bid, a defence source said.

When contacted by

The Hindu , Ola Rignell, chairman and managing director, SAAB India, said in an email: “It is a decision we have made due to the customers’ requirements regarding the time schedule and the requirements related to the Strategic Partnership policy with its unbalance between our possibilities to have control and our obligations and liabilities.”

“We believe we have a very competitive product that would suit the customer well,” he said. But, after having examined the expression of interest, the company decided “not to enter the competition due to the above reasons.”

₹45,000-crore deal

Daewoo Shipbuilding has joined four other companies in the fray: Naval Group (France), Navantia (Spain), Rosoboronexport (Russia) and TKMS (Germany).

The ₹45,000-crore deal to build six submarines in India under technology transfer is being processed through the Strategic Partnership, under which foreign manufacturers will have to tie up with Indian private companies to make the product locally. The request for information was issued in mid-2017, but there was no progress for want of clarity on some aspects of the Strategic Partnership. The expression of interest was issued in June this year.