Bangladesh inks deal with France to buy 10 Airbus aircraft

Bangladesh on Monday inked a deal with France for the purchase of 10 Airbus aircraft worth $3.2 billion and a letter of intent was exchanged for an earth observation satellite system as French President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina held talks to boost bilateral ties.

Macron’s visit to Dhaka, the first by a French president in 33 years, is widely seen as a move by Paris to consolidate its Asia-Pacific strategy and counterbalance a “new imperialism” in this part of Asia where China’s influence is growing steadily.

“Based on democratic principles and the rule of law, in a region facing new imperialism, we want to propose a third way — with no intention to bully our partners or to lead them to an unsustainable scheme,” Macron told Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in a veiled reference to China.

“All our strategy is focused on strengthening the independence and the strategic autonomy of our friends to give them the ‘freedom of sovereignty’,” he said.

Macron and Hasina on Monday discussed a “commitment” from Bangladesh’s flagship carrier Biman Airline to purchase ten A350s from European aircraft maker Airbus, a potential contract that could be worth as much as $3.2 billion.

Biman had previously bought aircraft from the US manufacturer Boeing. The 51-year-old state-run airline has a fleet of more than 20 mostly Boeing planes.

Speaking to reporters, Macron said that Bangladesh’s initiative to procure Airbus was “an important point” and “I thank you for your trust in the European aerospace industry. And this commitment for 10 Airbus A350 is important,” Macron said in a statement to the media after a meeting with the Bangladesh premier.

A French diplomat recently said France was a country of 60 million so it could not compete head-on with China while the US is an ally, so France can help countries in the region diversify their alliances, so they’re not reliant on one country alone.

A letter of intent was also signed to provide Bangladesh with an earth observation satellite system through cooperation between Bangladesh Satellite Company Limited, or BSCL, and Airbus Defense and Space SAS.

Authorities in Dhaka said they were still ironing out the details of the deal while Bangladesh’s Economic Relations Division signed the agreement with the French Development Agency.

State-run Bangladesh Satellite Company Ltd Chairman Shahjahan Mahmud said that the satellite to be procured would travel through an orbit around 350 miles above the earth.

This will be used mainly to observe the status of our crops and the sea. Currently, we don’t have any monitoring capabilities across the vast sea, he said.

Bangladesh bought its first geostationary communications and broadcasting satellite, named Bangabandhu Satellite-1 and launched it in 2018 from France.

According to foreign relations analysts, Macron’s two-day stopover in Dhaka was part of a French strategy to woo Bangladesh where superpowers such as China, Russia or the United States are jostling for influence.

Macron’s visit follows a Pacific trip in July to the French overseas territory of New Caledonia, Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea, as well as a stopover in Sri Lanka, in which he outlined his “Indo-Pacific strategy” aimed at “recommitting” France to the region.

France is Bangladesh’s fifth-largest trading partner in the fields of engineering, energy, aerospace and water sectors.

The bilateral trade ties started growing in the early 1990s while the total trade between Bangladesh and France soared from Euro 210 million to Euro 4.9 billion today with France being Bangladesh’s 5th largest export destination.