Hyderabad: With an ambitious target to earn Rs 35,000 crore by 2025 just by selling military equipment to foreign countries, India has drawn up a list of about 14 countries as target destinations for its defence exports.
The aim is to figure among the top five arms exporting countries in the world in the next five years.
“We have drawn up profiles of about 14 countries where we can sell our military equipment. All these are friendly countries from Asia and in the Middle East,” an official familiar with the development told ETV Bharat.
The effort is in consonance with the ongoing ‘Make in India’ effort and is in stark contrast to India’s reputation as the second-largest importer of weapons after Saudi Arabia according to the latest figures of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
In value of exports, India is lowly-ranked at 23 with Mauritius, Myanmar and Sri Lanka among its major clients.
On Thursday, defence secretary (production) Raj Kumar told a webinar on the theme of promoting India’s self-reliance in defence production that India is developing country profiles of friendly nations with the help of defence attaches. “This is our path from ‘Make in India’ to ‘make for the world’, Kumar said.
Among military equipment, Indian radars, guns, ammunition etc are some of the equipment in demand besides major items like the Brahmos missile which is a collaborative affair with Russia.
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India is focusing on a concerted effort to move away from the system of acquiring production licenses from Original Equipment Makers (OEM) for manufacturing the product inside the country to the co-production route through joint ventures.
The defence ministry has already posted a draft ‘Defence Production & Export Promotion Policy (DPEPP) 2020’ on its website seeking public comments.
Indian defence production was largely in the hands of the Ordnance Factories and Defence Public Sector Undertakings (DPSUs). But from 2001, private sector companies have also been given licenses to manufacture defence equipment.
It has resulted in the development of a diverse range of products such as arms and ammunition, tanks, armoured vehicles, heavy vehicles, fighter aircraft and helicopters, warships, submarines, missiles, ammunition, electronic equipment, earth moving equipment, etc.
In 2019-20, the size of the Indian defence industry including aerospace and naval shipbuilding Industry has been estimated to be about Rs 80,000 crore, of which the public sector led by Ordnance Factories and Defence Public Sector Undertakings (DPSUs) contributes about Rs 63,000 crore while the private sector has invested about Rs 17,000 crore.
