In September, Tawazun, the organization responsible for managing offsets in the United Arab Emirates, introduced contractors to significant changes to the Emirates’ guidelines. Those changes included modification of the compliance provisions and multipliers.
The director of South Africa’s Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), William Ramutla, told delegates to the ECCO conference that technology transfer is one of the main National Industrial Participation (NIP) policy objectives. The department is often challenged on its decision to award NIP credits only for the costs incurred in transferring the technology; the value of the technology does not qualify.
Lord Howe, who deals with all defence issues in the House of Lords, said “We’re not against defence directive EC 2009/81 [but] our interests rest in a more open and competitive defence market that respects our legitimate national security and interests. We have an open mind about whether the directive needs to be radically altered…. because we actually don't have the evidence about its effectiveness yet.”
Two senior executives from DAPA told ECCO conference delegates that South Korea has adjusted some multipliers and amended its offset credit banking rules to promote the development of SMEs and improve the prospect for defence exports. They were, however, largely clarifying changes revealed before.
Japan has requested offsets under an FMS application for the supply of three Global Hawk remotely piloted aircraft and associated equipment costing up to $1.2bn. The principal contractor would be Northrop Grumman.