UPDATED - Brazil fighter deal secured?

Rafale may have won the Brazilian fighter contest.

Gary Parsons - 4-Feb-2010

Key - Steve Fletcher

February 4: Brazilian newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo reports that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and the Defence Minister Nelson Jobim have agreed to buy the Dassault Rafale for its F-X fighter requirement after the French company reduced the US$8.2 billion price to $6.2 billion (€4.5 billion) for the 36 aircraft.

Despite the cost reduction, the Rafale is allegedly still the most expensive offer, with Saab’s proposal for the JAS-39 Gripen at $4.5 billion and Boeing’s F/A-18E/F Super Hornet at $5.7 billion. A Brazilian Air Force technical report also placed the Rafale behind the Gripen and Super Hornet in its preferred choice.

The report says that the cut of $2 billion in the French offer was sealed when Jobim visited Paris last weekend – French President Nicolas Sarkozy has made no secret of his desire to engage Brazil as a strategic economic partner.

However, on Thursday afternoon the President denied any decision has been made, speaking to the state news agency Agencia Brasil and that a report has still to be considered by a defence committee.

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