Europes Meteor Missile Team Announces US Partner Agreement with Boeing
Europe's Meteor Missile Team Announces US Partner Agreement with Boeing Europe's missiles industry today announced an unprecedented agreement with US aerospace leader Boeing to create high-tech transatlantic cooperation and open up a potentially huge export market. Boeing, the world's biggest aerospace company, becomes the US partner for the European Meteor team, which is bidding the world's most advanced Beyond Visual Range Air-to-Air Missile (BVRAAM) in the competition to meet the RAF's requirement for a weapon to defeat current and future threats. Boeing's decision to support the programme, which is led by Matra Bae Dynamics (the 50/50 joint venture between British Aerospace and Aerospatiale Matra), is in line with the increasing globalisation of the high-tech aerospace industry. The partners are Alenia Marconi Systems, LFK, Casa and Saab Dynamics. The involvement of Boeing, which is also a key supplier of combat aircraft, will open access to the US military market - the biggest in the world - and other operators of Boeing planes around the globe. Meteor can benefit from access to the US company's expertise in areas such as systems and aircraft integration and advanced manufacture techniques. MBD chief executive, Fabrice Bregier, said today: "Boeing's involvement provides a tremendous opportunity for high-tech transatlantic cooperation in line with stated US policy. It offers the US the potential to benefit from European research and development. It will create genuine global competition and customer choice in the missiles sector." Alan Garwood, MBD deputy chief executive, added: "This is an opportunity to deepen transatlantic cooperation in missile development in the way, we read, was proposed by President Clinton in his recent letter to Tony Blair. "Importantly, all the technology, systems design authority and Intellectual Property Rights reside in Europe, giving total freedom to the governments of the Eurofighter nations to maximise exports. European workshare is unaffected by today's agreement." Mike Boyce, vice president international business development for Boeing Military Aircraft and Missile Systems group, described his company's participation in the Meteor programme as an excellent market expansion opportunity and an important step in US and European industries working together. "We see our participation on Meteor as an opportunity to expand our business, apply our core competencies of large-scale systems integration and pursue transatlantic relationships," Boyce said. "We are exited about the opportunity of supporting the Meteor team to ensure customers receive the best solution for their requirements." Saab AB is active in the aerospace- and defense industry and supplies advanced products and systems based on sophisticated information technology. The business areas are Military Aerospace, Space, Training Systems, Commercial Aircraft and Combitech. For further information, please contact: Roland Gäreskog, Communications, Saab Dynamics AB +46 13 18 63 20 ------------------------------------------------------------ Please visit http://www.bit.se for further information The following files are available for download: http://www.bit.se/bitonline/1999/10/20/19991020BIT00930/bit0001.doc http://www.bit.se/bitonline/1999/10/20/19991020BIT00930/bit0002.pdf