Defence Minister George Fernandes declared in Bangalore on Thursday that India would be a smart buyer in the aerospace and aviation market, keeping in view its national interests and the healthy growth of its own industry.

Inaugurating the three-day international seminar on 'Aerospace Technologies - Developments & Strategies', being held as part of the on-going five-day Aero India 2003, Fernandes said India was ready for defence cooperation with other countries provided they guarantee reliability, continuity of supplies and support over the life cycle of their products.

"The Indian marketplace in the civil and defence aviation offers significant opportunities for overseas suppliers. We recognise the legitimate commercial interests of the global aerospace and aviation firms. At the same time, we do factor the impact of imports on our own aerospace and aviation industries," Fernandes told about 900 delegates, including several from overseas countries.

Stating that India has a healthy and open attitude for defence cooperation with those countries, which have the resources and technologies of our interests, Fernandes said, "Mutuality of interest would be the touchstone of our choice."

"Commercial and political considerations will continue to influence technology exchanges across national boundaries, all talk of globalisation notwithstanding. These intrusions are likely to be less deleterious if exchanges are among near equals.

"With an inside view of this process, I can categorically say that global majors supplying weapon systems drop prices steeply when they find out that there is a credible indigenous alternative technology," Fernandes asserted.

In this context, Fernandes said the growth of Indian technologies was essential for not only the purpose of providing capabilities to the Indian people, but also in making them smart buyers in the global aerospace and aviation market.

Commenting on the potential of the Indian industry, Fernandes made a reference, in a lighter vein, to what the pundits say about the current Indian cricket team and its prospects in the upcoming World Cup.

"We are not playing yet to our potential. There are several world cups to be won in aerospace. For that, we need to energise our systems and operate more efficiently. We ought to make our research and development efforts and production more efficient, dynamic and adaptive in several areas. Our scale of operations are required to be stepped up to multiply the success rate by several fold," Fernandes averred.