Prime Minister Narendra Modi witnesses display of India’s defence prowess at Bharat Shakti at Pokhran, Rajasthan. A PINAKA rocket launcher system is visible in the background. (@SpokespersonMoD)
India’s defence industry clocked the highest-ever defence exports of $2.5 billion in financial year 2023-24 (FY24), growing 25 per cent from $2 billion in FY23, revealed the Economic Survey 2023-24 presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday in the Lok Sabha.
Citing Ministry of Defence (MoD) data, the Survey also revealed that FY24’s figure for exports of military equipment and systems showed an over 12-fold growth compared to FY17’s figure of $0.2 billion.
According to the latest MoD data, India’s annual defence production hit a record high of almost Rs 1.27 trillion in FY24, up 16.7 per cent over the previous year’s figure of about Rs 1.09 trillion.
The Survey credited “tremendous efforts” by both the private defence sector and defence public sector undertakings for achieving “the highest-ever defence exports”.
The other reason for the jump in defence exports cited by the Survey was that the number of export authorisations issued to defence exporters increased to 1,507 in FY24, from 1,414 in FY23, clocking a growth of about 6.6 per cent year-on-year.
The Survey also said that over the past ten years, the government has given defence exports a push through several policy initiatives, including simplifying export procedures and making them industry-friendly, and reducing delays and facilitating ease of doing business through end-to-end online export authorisation.
“The ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ initiatives have helped the country by encouraging indigenous design, development and manufacture of defence equipment, thereby reducing dependency on imports in the long run,” added the Survey.
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Rising defence exports. Source: Economic Survey 2023-24 & Ministry of Defence
First Published: Jul 22 2024 | 4:16 PM IST
