India’s export of arms and defence technologies touched a record Rs 13,000 crore in the financial year 2021-22, with 70% contribution coming from the private sector and the remaining 30% from the public sector.
The defence exports, which witnessed a substantial increase over the preceding fiscal, were mainly to the US, the Philippines and other countries in South-East Asia, West Asia and Africa.
“In 2021-22, we have recorded Rs 13,000 crore of exports, which is the highest ever number that we have ever recorded in defence,” Additional Secretary (Defence Production) Sanjay Jaju said on Friday.
A major export deal inked in January this year was the $375 million (Rs 2,770 crore) contract to export BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles to the Philippines, which will pave the way for more such deals with the country as well as other Asean countries like Indonesia and Vietnam, as was reported earlier by TOI.
The arms exports in 2021-22 were almost eight times of what they were about five years back. India’s defence exports amounted to Rs 8,434 crore in 2020-21, Rs 9,115 crore in 2019-20 and Rs 2,059 crore in 2015-16.
Defence minister Rajnath Singh will reward a private sector organisation and another from the public sector that performed the best in defence exports at the first-ever “Artificial Intelligence in Defence” symposium and exhibition on Monday.
Defence secretary Ajay Kumar said 75 newly-developed AI products and technologies with applications in defence will be launched during the event. The products are in the domains of automation/unmanned/robotics systems, cyber security, human behavior analysis, intelligent monitoring system, logistics and supply chain management, speech/voice analysis and C4ISR (command, control, communication, computer and intelligence, surveillance & reconnaissance) systems. Apart from the 75 products being launched, another 100 are in various stages of development, he said.
