Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday exhorted defence manufacturing companies to become part of ‘Make in India’, reaffirming the Government’s commitment to achieve USD 26 billion defence industry by 2025. The Defence Minister was speaking at a business seminar ‘India Rising’, organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce at ‘Defence and Security Exhibition 2019’ in Bangkok, Thailand.
He said, the defence sector has been given prominence under the ‘Make in India’ initiative to reduce dependence on imports and make India a major defence manufacturing hub and net exporter of defence equipment and platforms.
Rajnath Singh said the Government has set a target of taking India’s defence exports to USD five billion by 2025 under the ‘Draft Defence Production Policy 2018’. “On one hand this target is ambitious, but at the same time it is encouraging that India’s defence exports have grown almost six-fold in the last two years,” he added.
Singh further said, USD 10 billion investment in aerospace and defence goods and services is expected by 2025 which could provide employment to 2-3 million people.
He listed out various initiatives taken by Ministry of Defence (MoD) that led to rapid increase in exports. These include simplification of procedures for exports, simplification of industry licensing process, increase in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) cap, streamlining of defence offset policy and making government trial and testing facilities available to the private sector.
“The government’s desire to establish two defence corridors in Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh is clear. A Defence Innovation Hub is already functioning in Coimbatore. A Defence Planning Committee has also been formed,” Singh said.
He also highlighted the Government has undertaken far-reaching reforms in the last five and a half years to increase synergy between public and private sector. It has contributed positively in defence production and procurement.
He said, work is on to introduce a common testing and certification scheme under a Public Private Partnership model to create an enabling environment.
“A new Transfer of Technology (ToT) policy is being created to simplify the way of transferring technology developed by DRDO to the industry. So far, more than 900 ToT licensing agreements have been signed with industries which is a major step towards making the defence manufacturing sector self-sufficient,” Singh said.
The Defence Minisrer invited domestic and overseas investors to actively participate in the forthcoming DefExpo to be held in Uttar Pradesh capital Lucknow from February 5-8, 2020.
