Egypt signs deal to buy 30 Rafale jets from France

Egypt signed an agreement to purchase 30 Rafale fighter jets from France, according to the country's armed forces spokesperson early Tuesday.

Tamer al-Refai said on Twitter that an agreement was signed between the Egyptian Armed Forces and France’s Dassault Aviation SA.

He noted that the deal was made through a financing loan to be repaid over at least 10 years.

However, he did not mention the value of the deal.

Al-Refai also recalled that a similar agreement on the purchase of 24 Rafale fighter jets was made between Cairo and Paris in 2015.

Earlier Monday, the investigative website Disclose said the deal was worth €3.75 billion ($4.52 billion).

It revealed that a major weapons sale by France to Egypt was "secretly" signed on April 26 at the request of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

Besides the warplane agreement, the deal agreed to between the two states also concerns two other contracts with the France-based missile manufacturing consortium MBDA and avionics firm Safran Electronics & Defense, with a total worth of €200 million ($240.8 million).

As a result, the total value of last month's deal was €3.95 billion ($4.75 billion).

Disclose also noted that the Egyptian state has obtained a loan of which 85% is to be guaranteed by France.

Source: AA

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