Brazilian manufacturer Embraer is exploring risk-sharing and licence-production deals with companies in several Asian countries as part of a push to improve sales in the region of the 30-seat EMB-120 Brasilia regional turboprop aircraft.
Ex-Fokker salesman Peter Obeysekere, Embraer's new vice-president for Asia, the Far East and South Pacific, says that focus is back on the EMB-120 after years of concentrating on the launch of the EMB-145 regional jet. The company will shortly open a new Asian sales office, probably in Singapore.
Obeysekere says that the company is looking at possible collaboration in China, and that it has also held discussions with Hindustan Aeronautics in India, and with Malaysian interests, about possible offset or licence-build deals. Recent sales of the EMB-120 have declined, and production is running at around16 aircraft a year.
Source: Flight International
