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NEW DELHI: Billionaire Gautam Adani’s aerospace and defence business and Brazil’s Embraer will announce a tie-up this week to assemble commercial aircraft in India, a source with direct knowledge of the matter says, boosting the country’s civil aviation industry.

Assembling aircraft in India would mark a significant win for the Indian government, which has long urged planemakers to build jets domestically, citing more than 1,500 aircraft orders from Indian carriers.

Planemakers have until now pushed back, arguing in part that the business case did not add up.

Adani Aerospace has signed a memorandum of understanding with Embraer, the world’s third-largest planemaker behind Airbus and Boeing, to set up a final assembly line for its regional jets in India, the source said.

Adani Aerospace and Embraer sent invitations to the media teasing a “historic” development in commercial aviation last Tuesday.

The announcement will be made at the office of India’s Civil Aviation Ministry, the invitation said.

Embraer declined to comment, while Adani Aerospace and India’s Civil Aviation Ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The pact was earlier reported by The Times of India newspaper.

Nearly 50 Embraer aircraft of various types operate in India, including civil aircraft flown by regional carrier Star Air.

The fleet is much smaller than the Airbus and Boeing aircraft that dominate Indian airlines’ order books.

Embraer, which opened an office in New Delhi last year, has forecast that the South Asian nation will need at least 500 aircraft in the 80- to 146-seat range over the next 20 years. — Reuters