2009: a great year for aerospace. The Paris Air Show will celebrate its centenary, but we also celebrate the 40th anniversary of Concorde’s maiden flight, and the first moonwalk. And we should not forget that it was just a century ago that Louis Blériot flew across the Channel for the first time. These anniversaries fall in a difficult context of crisis and a major overhaul of defence in France, set out in the White Paper on defence and national security. Its guidance, stated in the defence spending programme voted this spring, gives the main orientations of defence in the next 15 years, in particular concerning equipment, procurement strategy and industrial policy.
New Trends in Defence Aerospace
Like any other sector, the aircraft industry has been affected by the financial and economic crisis. This crisis has been with us for almost a year. For several months now both passenger and freight traffic have fallen significantly. Reductions in investment seem to be inevitable. And we have to accept that the space industry is also in line for an inexorable and wide-ranging reduction in activity.
In this context the defence share of these activities is also likely to be affected. Even though France itself is making a determined effort to maintain its defence equipment budget, reductions in defence expenditure are becoming increasingly likely in many other countries. This could adversely affect the export of military equipment, so essential for the health of our armaments industry.
The reduction of activity may also adversely affect the civil prospects of certain dual-use military applications; this is clearly so in the majority of cases in the aerospace industry. Finally, increasing difficulty in finding financing could weaken manufacturers; this is particularly relevant to all the small and medium-sized firms which play such a vital role in the defence industry, and which represent in certain instances very real sources of technological innovation.
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