Argentina enters the international military market: FADEA will sell eight Pampas aircraft abroad

The government's dream of Mauricio Macri to start converting Crown corporations into profitable businesses will materialize in the coming months, not just at the local level: The aeronautical company FADEA, which depends on the Ministry of Defense, will expand its production of Pampa aircraft to the international market with the planned sale of at least eight military aircraft.

After delivering three Pampa aircraft to the Air Force last year and with a planned delivery of three more aircraft this year, FADEA will be launched to the foreign market if negotiations are completed with at least six countries aircraft interest military produced in the factory of Cordoba.

As you may have known Infobae, Directors of FADEA and the Ministry of Defense headed by Oscar Aguad they are trading in these days of sales operations of at least 8 Pampa aircraft for the military of Guatemala, Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia. Although advanced negotiations are under way for the manufacture of the same pampas used by the Argentine Air Force for countries such as South Africa and Saudi Arabia They have also expressed interest in this purchase of modern aircraft.

In the case of Guatemala, it will buy two Pampas planes, Paraguay plans to buy three, Uruguay 2 and Bolivia closes negotiations for the acquisition of an aircraft. The cost of each of these aircraft is estimated at $ 12 million. and the structure to bademble them is already finished in the Córdoba terminal of FADEA.

Luis Riva, the Secretary of Defense Research and Production of the Ministry in charge of FADEA Infobae "After 10 years, the public company of military aircraft has become not only an aircraft factory selling and selling aircraft, but it is aggressively facing the international market".

Riva has confirmed that "everything will be done so that, in a few years, several air forces of the countries of the region use Pampa 3 as an advanced combat aircraft and advanced training".

At the same time, the defense officer said that FADEA is also growing strongly in the maintenance of civil aircraft. This year, it is already planned that around 50 commercial aircraft will receive various maintenance services at the Córdoba plant.. "It helps speed up this year, FAdeA does not require any state subsidies," Riva said.

Thus, for this year, FADEA aimed to triple its sales outside the state, already reduced by 80% of its deficit and for this year, three other new Pampa III aircraft intended for the army of the Air leaving the Córdoba plant will count with 870 employees.

The activity of FADEA in its foray into the international market will not end with the sale of Pampa aircraft. At the same time, Argentina has been selling spare parts and training for more than five years.

With the level of sales outside the state, The company FADEA aims to increase its turnover by 50% in the coming years. Along with this, the army helicopters continue to be repaired and the Hercules aircraft fleet is modernized.

To achieve these goals, the Argentinean Cordoba-based aerospace factory, established in 1927, has undergone a modernization and reconversion phase over the past three years, which has not been simple. Since 2015, it has grown from 1,596 employees to 870 currently. This generated a difficult argument with the guilds. The deficit has also decreased by 80%, from a red from $ 1,500 million in 2015 to $ 350 million this year. And fixed expenses went from $ 338 million in 2015 to $ 189 million last year.

While In 2015, sales outside the state amounted to $ 13.5 million. Last year they amounted to $ 220 million. After an agreement already concluded with Flybondi, Embraer, Latam, IAI, Etihad and Andes, the goal is to obtain a forecast of $ 600 million. annual billing weights this year.

The agreement with giant Etihad Engineering for the maintenance of Latam appliances, which has just been signed last week in Córdoba, includes the maintenance and repair of the Boieng 737 and Airbus 320.

This agreement will be crucial if we take into account the fact that this company has 30 years of experience in the market, 3,000 employees and a presence in 50 countries for the services of airlines such as Emirates, Avianca, Air France, Lufthansa, Qatar, Latam and Singapore Airlines, among which: other

State revenue in 2017 amounted to $ 1,970 million and is expected to generate $ 1,850 million this year. But the idea of ​​the Defense Ministry and the directors of FADEA is that it will become in the future a profitable enterprise with total budgetary independence from the National Treasury.