NE NEWS SERVICE
NEW DELHI, JULY 30
The next edition of India’s mega defence exhibition – the DefExpo – will be held at Gandhinagar in Gujarat from March 11-13 next year and its focus will be to showcase the country as an emerging hub for manufacturing of military hardware, officials said on Friday.
Major global and domestic military firms are expected to participate in the 12th biennial edition of the DefExpo with their latest weaponry and platforms. The 11th edition of DefExpo took place in Lucknow last year.
The theme of the upcoming DefExpo will be “India: The Emerging Defence Manufacturing Hub”, according to the officials.
The government is expected to highlight measures at the event to transform India into a hub of military manufacturing. The government has initiated a series of measures in the last couple of years to encourage the domestic defence industry.
Last August, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh announced that India will stop the import of 101 weapons and military platforms like transport aircraft, light combat helicopters, conventional submarines, cruise missiles and sonar systems by 2024.
A second negative list, putting import restrictions on 108 military weapons and systems such as next-generation corvettes, airborne early warning systems, tank engines and radars, was issued recently.
In May last year, the government announced increasing the FDI limit from 49 percent to 74 percent under the automatic route in the defence sector. India is one of the largest importers of arms globally.
According to estimates, the Indian armed forces are projected to spend around $130 billion in capital procurement in the next five years. The government now wants to reduce dependence on imported military platforms and has decided to support domestic defence manufacturing.
The defence ministry has set a goal of a turnover of $25 billion (Rs 1.75 lakh crore) in defence manufacturing in the next five years that included an export target of $5 billion (Rs 35,000 crore) worth of military hardware.
Incidentally, Gujarat government had announced a special policy to boost defence manufacturing in the state with a slew of sops.
