In his Independence Day speech this 12 months, Prime Minister Narendra Modi reminded the nation that India is attaining ‘Aatmanirbharta’ in defence and is rising as a world manufacturing hub. Whereas this will sound shocking, India as soon as closely relied on defence imports however as per the most recent knowledge, the annual defence manufacturing hit a report excessive of Rs 1.27 lakh crore within the Monetary Yr (FY) 2023-24. In the identical fiscal, defence exports touched a report excessive of Rs 21,083 crore, a rise of 32.5% over FY 2022-23.
“As well as, there was a large leap in defence exports within the first quarter of FY 2024-25. Rs 6,915 crore value of defence gear has been exported within the first quarter, a rise of 78% from the primary quarter of FY 2023-24, when the determine was Rs 3,885 crore,” stated the federal government knowledge.
Now, in line with a TOI report, international locations like the USA, France, and Armenia have emerged as the highest importers of Indian defence merchandise. Armenia tops the chart because the importer of ‘completed’ weapon programs from India, corresponding to Akash air defence missile programs, Pinaka multi-launch rocket programs, and 155mm artillery weapons.
India recorded defence gross sales/exports value Rs 21,083 crore ($2.6 billion) to different international locations in 2023-24. It included the US, France and Armenia.
Indian private and non-private sector companies at the moment are exporting a various array of arms, ammunition, and fuses to almost 100 international locations. These exports embrace full weapon programs and platforms corresponding to BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles, Dornier-228 plane, artillery weapons, radars, Akash missiles, Pinaka rockets, and armoured autos.
Notably, different international locations are additionally expressing curiosity within the Indian defence merchandise. Since India secured a $375-million deal in January 2022 to export three BrahMos anti-ship coastal missile batteries to the Philippines, curiosity in these precision-strike missiles—co-developed by India and Russia—has been rising amongst different ASEAN nations and several other Gulf international locations.
Nevertheless, there’s a lengthy technique to go for India to develop into self-reliant in defence because the nation stays the world’s largest arms importer accounting for 9.8% of the entire international imports between 2019-2023.
