New Delhi: Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has spelt out various government initiatives to give a boost to the private sector, targets for defence production and the focus on export of arms.

Speaking at the Economic Times Global Business Summit, he said the government has
clearly spelt out its goal to achieve a turnover of $26 billion in aerospace and defence goods and services by 2025, involving an additional investment of nearly $10 billion and creating employment for two to three million people.

“While our defence infrastructure has provided us with the basic thrust towards indigenous production, it has left a lot to be desired in the industry performing to its full potential,” he said.

The Minister said there were several reasons for this, one of the main being to retain the field of defence production within the confines of government control and ownership. However, the necessity of becoming internationally competitive, innovative and structurally efficient, demands that the private sector play its long-awaited role in defence industrial production.

“Our government has brought in measures to make (norms for) defence exports less stringent, streamlined the defence offset policy, opened up government-owned trial and testing facilities for the private sector. We have also launched two defence industrial corridors and announced schemes to promote innovation through participation of startups and small and medium enterprises, to name just a few,” Singh said.

He said simplification of procedures has resulted in a seven-fold increase in defence exports from 2016-17.

The Minister said the government will also be willing to extend lines of credit and grants for friendly countries over the next five years. The government aims to achieve exports of defence goods and services worth $5 billion in the next five years.

He said aeronautics was a great platform to share government’s aim to double the size of the industry – from Rs 30,000 crore to Rs 60,000 crore by 2024 – and provide increased opportunities globally to become suppliers of aero-components. A number of major platforms are envisaged in the defence aerospace sector, the development of which is not possible without major contribution of private players.

Rajnath Singh said the results of past initiatives and policy changes are increasingly visible in the growth of the private sector. In just a matter of few years, the private sector’s share in defence production has increased to over 21 per cent. Even in production for the defence public sector and Ordnance Factory Board, 40 per cent of activities are being outsourced to the private sector.