Rajnath Singh, the Indian Defense Minister, recently visited, and his trip helped to clarify the situation in Cairo. For the LCA Tejas to be produced locally at the Arab Organization for Industrialization facility, which is prepared to produce fighter planes, India has promised Egypt a full transfer of technology.
The similar offer was made also by South Korea, which offered its FA-50 Light Attack Fighter Jets, and both the Indian and Korean offers were accepted for further discussion by Egyptian officials.
The Egyptian Air Force wants to buy 70 single-engine, lightweight combat planes so it may resume indigenous aircraft manufacture, which it had in the early 1950s.
India wants to use Egypt as a base to export LCA Tejas to the Middle Eastern and African markets. For this purpose, India is also providing re-export authorization, full technology transfer, and crew training. The first Mk1A Standard aircraft from HAL will be delivered to the Indian Air Force in 2024 and it will continue to be manufactured until 2028 or 2029, when it will be replaced by the Tejas Mk2 programme and the AMCA programme.
