Northrop Grumman Corp’s chief executive on Wednesday praised a US export-control streamline effort, only weeks after voicing fears that existing curbs could doom the fledgling US industry making unmanned aircraft. “I like what I see, I give a lot of credit to the US It’s always hard to change a system that’s been in place for many decades,” CEO Wes Bush told the Reuters Aerospace and Defence Summit in Washington.
Last month, Bush complained publicly that curbs on exports could cause the United States to lose its lead in unmanned technologies to other nations. “The administration has been working hard on export control reform,” Bush said on Wednesday. “We’d all like to see it move faster, but I believe it is heading in a very positive direction.”
International sales currently account for 6 percent of Northrop Grumman’s overall sales, which totalled about $35 billion in 2010.
The Obama administration has begun consulting Congress on plans to sell Global Hawk to South Korea. Bush said that the US State and Defense departments were working through other foreign expressions of interest in Global Hawks, which were used this year in disaster recovery efforts in Japan after the March earthquake and tsunami and deployed during the Libya conflict.
Northrop acquired Global Hawk as part of its 1999 purchase of Teledyne Ryan Aeronautical, which had developed the high-altitude unmanned aircraft.
A video of the interview with Wes Bush can be seen here.
Source: Reuters