KUALA LUMPUR: As promised, here is some news from Paris.
First of all, the generous French had agree to extend the RM1.604 billion price for the 12 Eurocopter EC725 until February, next year. Initially, the deadline for the price was set to end next month but apparently they had decided to be more generous during these hard times.
There is no firm word whether the government will make the final decision on the procurement any time soon. Malaysian Defence believes that a decision, if any, would be made when the budget is announced probably after September. I am not holding my breath as the air force is already making plans to upgrade some of its Nuri helicopters to extend their service lives beyond 2015.
And as for A400M, it looks like that the status quo remains unless some extraordinary happened in Europe, which is unlikely.
Apart from those two tidbits, Malaysian Defence had a ” Huh” moment today when told that the Armed Forces chief will be soon visiting China. The visit came hard on the heels of the Dear PM visit to the country once known to Malaysians as the Bamboo Curtain.
Malaysian Defence is not suggesting any arms deals is in the offing as the PAT knows that the quality of the Chinese M4 clones are not that great but there are other things in the PRC’s arsenal’s that might interest us……
— Malaysian Defence
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Just got back form China. They are all thieves. Should be able to close a lot of deals with us while the boys get saddled with cheap imitations.
Like Iran, although there were irregularities and flagrant policy violations (e.g. untoward influence from MoF based on non-performance criteria), the decision remains.