New Delhi, Oct 23 (IANS) India has emerged as the third-largest arms exporter to Europe, driven by the rising demand for defence goods under the “Rearm Europe” initiative and backed by an expanding domestic manufacturing sector, Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh said on Friday.
“Our exports have reached an all-time high of Rs 38,424 crore, which is about 3.6 billion euros, and I was reading a Bloomberg report yesterday, which said that suddenly, over the last year, India became the third-largest exporter of arms to Europe, mainly because of the Rearm Europe initiative. As a result, a lot of standard ammunition of different types, artillery shells, and large- and small-calibre ammunition started getting exported to Europe in significant numbers,” Rajesh Kumar Singh told journalists.
He pointed out that over the last 10 years, there has been tremendous growth in India’s defence manufacturing ecosystem. Apart from the 16 large public sector companies, it has almost 840 large and medium-sized private sector firms as well as some 17,000 small enterprises, including startups.
“The result of this diversified industrial base is becoming visible in terms of the value of domestic sales, which are now almost 17 billion euros,” he added.
The Defence Secretary further stated that India now exports defence goods to more than 80 countries. Besides, the government tries to ensure that 75 per cent of the defence capex of around 20 to 25 billion dollars every year gets spent within the country, as priority is given to IDDM products, which are Indian-designed, developed, and manufactured, to ensure technological sovereignty.
India’s defence exports go beyond heavy artillery and ammunition to tactical gear like helmets and bulletproof jackets to small arms, he said.
He said that a lot of buyers, particularly in Southeast Asia, have contracts that are all in public negotiations. These involve a whole gamut of different types of defence components, small arms of different types, and artillery gun systems.
The Defence Secretary said earlier India used to rely on Russia as its largest defence supplier.
“We still have a lot of our equipment that is of Russian origin, but over time that dependence has come down and we diversified; we already have fairly strong bilateral relations with some European countries, France in particular. But also with several other countries as well,” he observed.
After Russia, France has the largest share of defence imports, at around 15 per cent or so, with Israel having an equal share, Rajesh Kumar Singh added.
“I’ve just been on a visit to Greece and Cyprus, which are countries with whom we see a lot of strategic alignment. They are also recent partners; this is also our gateway,” he remarked.
The top defence official emphasised that this diversification allows India to scale up production rapidly to meet international procurement demands.
“India intends to increasingly take part in Europe’s arms procurement program. Not directly, but by setting up joint ventures in Europe. And of course, European Partners to set up joint ventures in India to access our defence market, and for us to set up joint ventures in Europe to access the European government programmes.”
He further stated that European countries can also take part in India’s arms procurement programme, but they will have to meet the government’s ‘Make in India’ conditions.
“I hope that this partnership agreement can lay the base for a situation where the supply chains between European and Indian defence manufacturers become increasingly integrated, and that is what we sort of intend to work on,” he added.
–IANS
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