New Delhi: India’s Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has invited the global Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) to utilise the opportunities offered by the expanding Indian defence ecosystem and find targeted solutions & counter measures to the challenges emerging due to the volatile geopolitical landscape of today.
He was addressing the CEOs Roundtable organised as part of Aero India 2025 in Bengaluru, Karnataka on Monday.
Singh stated that amidst the fragile global security situation, where rules-based order is being challenged and technologies are creating new opportunities & vulnerabilities, there is a need to adopt & improve solutions constantly.
“Today, the nature of communication and data sharing in military operations is getting much more complex. The reliance on space-based navigation systems, communication and surveillance implies that such assets would have to be integrated in our operational plans. The use of drones in recent conflicts indicate that the future would depend on the integrated efforts of manned, unmanned and autonomous warfare systems. Hence, our defence manufacturing has to focus on creating counter measures for these emerging challenges,” said Singh.
Citing great Indian strategist Kautilya, he said that we have the moral responsibility to protect our people and territory in a hostile atmosphere.
“To achieve this, we are taking all necessary steps to equip our Armed Forces and making the country self-reliant in defence manufacturing through the establishment of a strong, efficient, resilient and future-ready defence industrial ecosystem,” he said.
Singh asserted that the Government of India, led by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, has put in place transparent & industry-friendly regulations, processes and policies and emphasised that the opportunities provided by the Indian defence ecosystem are driven by the policies of self-reliance in defence production, facilitated by a conducive policy regime.
He also enumerated the transformative steps taken by the Government to make the domestic defence industry an important component of the national economy in order to facilitate India’s transition from a developing to a developed country by 2047.
“We have allowed FDI upto 75% through the Automatic Route for companies seeking new defence license, while upto 100% is also allowed under Government approval route. A total of 46 Joint Ventures and Companies have been given foreign investment approval in the defence sector till date,” he said.
Singh added that more than 250 MoUs have, so far, been signed for the establishment of industrial units in the Defence Industrial Corridors set-up in Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.
“As a testimony to the emergence of India as a defence export nucleus, India has seen 31 times growth in the export of products in the last 10 years as compared to Financial Year 2013-14,” he said.
The theme of the Roundtable was ‘Enabling Defence Cooperation through Global Engagement (EDGE)’. OEMs from 19 countries (USA, France, Russia, South Korea, UK, Japan, Israel & Brazil etc), 35 Indian (Larsen & Toubro, Bharat Forge Ltd, Adani Defence & Aerospace, Mahindra Defence Systems Ltd, BrahMos Aerospace & Ashok Leyland Defence) and 16 Defence DPSUs attended the event.
Major foreign OEMs including Airbus (France), Ultra Maritime (USA), GNT (South Korea), John Cockerill Defence (UK), Mitsubishi (Japan), Rafael Advanced Defense System (Israel), Safran (France) and Liebherr Aerospace (France) highlighted their future plans, Joint Ventures, collaborations, partnerships with Indian companies for production of spares parts, development of aero-engines, setting up of Maintenance, Repair and Operations facilities and establishment of R&D facilities.
