Reports noted that the country’s rigid offset policy could curb the growth of Samtel-Thales Avionics, a joint venture (JV) between India’s Samtel Display Systems and the French multinational Thales to manufacture TopSight-I, a Helmet Mounted Display System (HMD) for a range of fighter aircrafts. Thales is interested to transfer the necessary technology to the JV, in which it holds 26 per cent stake, provided all the production is eligible for offset banking.1 However the MoD’s offset policy mandates that foreign vendors can only bank offset credits to the tune of their actual investment.2

• 1. Ajai Shukla, “Offset policy inertia curbs Thales-Samtel JV,” Business Standard, November 13, 2009
• 2. Government of India, Ministry of Defence, Defence Procurement Procedure: Capital Procurement 2008