PARIS, (Reuters) – Brazil urgently needs to buy new fighter jets and could set a 2012 deadline for completing the purchase, Defence Minister Celso Amorim said yesterday.
“There is an urgent need (to renew the fleet),” Amorim told reporters after meeting his French counterpart Gerard Longuet.
Asked if the deadline to buy planes in 2012 was still on the cards, he said: “It is possible. I don’t dismiss it.”
France’s Dassault Aviation-built Rafale, the US Boeing’s F/A-18 Super Hornet and the Swedish Saab’s Gripen NG have long been vying for the estimated $4-7 billion contract.
