Qatar eyeing major F-15E purchase

Not sure if this has been posted before, but it was certainly news to me.

Japan-Qatar Ties Help Fund Rafale Order

PARIS — Japanese banks drew on close commercial ties to Qatar when they lent funds that helped Doha pay last year’s down payment for Rafale fighter jets and missiles worth €6.3 billion ($6.8 billion), financial specialists said.

Qatar paid the deposit for the Rafale deal Dec. 16, finally putting into effect contracts signed eight months earlier on May 4. A down payment is usually 15 percent of the total amount.

The order included 24 Dassault Aviation fighters and 12 options, and guided weapons from MBDA and Safran’s Sagem. The French Air Force will also train Qatari pilots and maintenance personnel.Japanese banks lent Doha funds for the down payment, said a French executive and a financial specialist who declined to be identified.

Qatar expects its economy this year to fall into a $12.8 billion budgetary deficit, representing 6 percent of gross domestic product, according to the CIA World Factbook. “Low oil prices have dampened the outlook,” the report said.

The Japanese banks can offer low-cost financing as they draw on ample funds, with the Bank of Japan injecting cash in a quantitative easing policy in a bid to boost the sagging economy.

Japanese banks have shown some public concern on lending on weapons, as indicated in a ban by Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ on lending to builders of cluster bombs, but there is greater pressure on European lenders.

“European banks are under tight regulatory control on credit risk and deeper scrutiny under corporate social responsibility,” Audrand said.

That may have made it hard for French banks to lend to Qatar for the Rafale as there is geopolitical risk, with tension rising with Iran and the Islamic State, he said.

US banks were unlikely to have funded the Qatari order as that would likely displease Boeing, a competitor to Dassault in the fighter market, the financial specialist said.

Qatar seeks acquisition of 73 F-15E Strike Eagle fighters, with 36 in a first tranche, US Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker has said. The White House is expected to decide soon whether that deal will go ahead, as the Defense and State Department support for the request.

Doha announced in June a planned order for four Boeing C-17 transports.

Qatar is seen as a large arms market, announcing in 2014 a plan to buy two Airbus A330 multirole tanker transport aircraft and 22 NH90 helicopters.

24 (+12) Rafales + 73 F-15Es!!

Massive jump from the 9 Mirage 2000s they operate today.

If it goes through, it’ll be one more in a string of export successes for the F-15E: Israel (25), South Korea (61), Singapore (24) and Saudi Arabia (156). In an unusual state of affairs, export orders already outnumber domestic orders for the type (not counting the earlier variants).