ugc_banner

India committed to achieving $26 billion defence industry by 2025: Rajnath Singh

WION Web Team
New Delhi Updated: Nov 18, 2019, 10:33 AM IST
main img
Rajnath Singh was speaking at sixth ASEAN defence ministers’ meeting-plus in Thailand. Photograph:(ANI)

Story highlights

The defence sector has been identified as one of the prominent sectors under 'Make in India' initiative to realise US$ 5 trillion economy by 2024, he said

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday said that Government of India (GoI) is committed to working towards achieving a US$ 26 billion Defence Industry by 2025.

Rajnath Singh was speaking at sixth ASEAN defence ministers’ meeting-plus in Thailand.

The defence sector has been identified as one of the prominent sectors under 'Make in India' initiative to realise US$ 5 trillion economy by 2024, he said. 

India is the second-largest importer of arms as of 2014-18 with a share of 9.5% of the total world imports.

The draft Defence Production Policy 2018 had set a target of US$ 5 billion in defence exports by 2025, the defence minister said and added while the target is ambitious, it's encouraging to know that India's defence exports grew nearly six times over the past 2 years.

Allocation for defence in India's budget 2019-20 is around US$ 60 billion.

Nearly 65% of parts, components, sub-systems of existing systems has been delicensed, India can now manufacture them and approx US$ 3 billion worth of defence items are being manufactured by domestic privet sector, he said.