AIDN Victoria CEO Claire Willette has signed a MOU establishing partnership, collaboration, capacity building, and market entry facilitation with the Region Centre Val de Loire in France, paving the way for Victoria's defence industry to access the European market.
Region Centre Val de Loire is the epicentre of defence land systems in France. 70 per cent of France’s defence land systems are developed in the region as well as a significant number of French aviation companies involved in defence aerospace.
France is the largest defence exporter in the EU and also has the Union's largest defence budget.
The MoU capitalises on shared interest in defence land systems development within the two regions, with Victoria the home to the VDA Land Systems cluster.
The agreement is the result of visits and discussions between the Victorian Government Trade and Investment office in London, the Victorian Defence Alliances (VDA), and the regional government for the Region Centre Val de Loire. It was signed against the backdrop of 20,000 global defence industry and military participants conducting business at the Eurosatory Defence Conference in Paris.
In a statement, AIDN Victoria said that Defence and dual-use companies on both sides are developing a direct dialogue to foster new relationships and identify collaborative projects between the two regions, a critical relationship for Australian companies who want to tender on European defence projects but would otherwise be non-competitive due to strict EU eligibility requirements.
"This type of initiative aligns squarely against the Commonwealth Government’s Defence Export Strategy, and the newly established national focus on direct export by Australia’s SMEs into foreign markets," AIDN Victoria said.
The MOU comes off the back of maturing collaboration between the two regions, with a Victorian delegation visiting Bourges as part of the Team Defence Australia delegation visiting Eurosatory, a visit to Land Forces by the French delegation in September 2018, and a proposed visit by the region’s President to Victoria in September 2018.