NEW DELHI: India signed a deal on Friday to buy 36 Rafale fighter jets for $8.8 billion, France’s biggest such sale, as it seeks to bolster its military against China and Pakistan.

Defence experts say the aircraft, manufactured by France’s Dassault, will bring much needed boost to India’s air force as it struggles to renew its Soviet-era military hardware.

India, the world’s top defence importer, is conducting a $100-billion upgrade of its military hardware, facing border disputes with its northern and western neighbours, China and Pakistan.

“Rafale will significantly improve India’s strike & defence capabilities,” tweeted Indian Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar shortly after signing the deal with his French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian.

Friday’s agreement follows years of tortuous negotiations and represents a substantial reduction from the 126 planes originally mooted.

But it is still France’s biggest aviation defence deal in financial terms and was hailed as a vote of confidence by French President Francois Hollande, whose administration has lobbied heavily for the Rafale.

“The agreement... is a mark of the recognition by a major military power of the operational performance, the technical quality and the competitiveness of the French aviation industry,” he said in a statement.

It is the biggest order for the Rafale after Egypt agreed to buy 24 of the jets in 2015 and Qatar purchased the same amount later that year.

The highly versatile aircraft is currently being used for bombing missions over Syria and Iraq as part of an international campaign against the militant Islamic State group.

It has also been deployed in the past for air strikes in Libya and Afghanistan.

The first planes will be delivered in 2019 and the 36 jets will form two new squadrons of the Indian air force, which is trying to renew its dwindling fleet of Russian MiG-21s — dubbed “Flying Coffins” because of their poor safety record.

Published in Dawn September 24th, 2016