India has increased defence exports by six times in the last five-six years as the world’s seventh largest economy now sells military equipment to at least 75 countries, its prime minister has claimed.
"Today, India is providing Made in India defence equipment and services to more than 75 countries," he said during at the Defence Ministry's post-budget webinar on Friday.
In October last year, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh made the same claim.
Addressing a discussion, he then said that India's defence exports had grown by 334% in the previous five years and now India is exporting military equipment to more than 75 countries.
India’s defence exports have increased from Rs1,521 crore in 2016-17 to Rs,8434.84 crore in 2020-21, according to a report of The Hindu.
The figure stood at Rs10,745 crore in 2018-19. India has set an ambitious target to achieve exports of about Rs35,000 crore in aerospace and defence goods and services by 2025.
In his Friday speech, Narendra Modi said the process of importing defence items is so long that by the time they reach our security forces, many of them have become outdated and therefore, the solution is to go for indigenous manufacturing.
"Even during the period of slavery and immediately after Independence, the strength of our defence manufacturing was very high. Weapons made in India played a big role in World War II," he said.
"Although this strength of ours kept on weakening in later years, it shows that there was no shortage of capacity in India then and neither it is there now," he added.
About 70% of this year's defence budget has been kept for domestic industry only, he said.
"The strength of India's IT is our great strength. The more we use this power in our defence sector, the more confident we will be in our security," he noted.
"For example, cyber security is no longer limited to the digital world only. It has become a matter of national security," Modi added.
