Govt committed to achieving defence production target of $22 bn by 2025: Rajnath

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday said the government is working and committed to increasing the defence production target from current $12 billion to $22 billion by 2025.

"You (industry) can imagine, with this kind of growth, how many opportunities will be available for the Indian industry," the Defence Minister said while addressing FICCI's 95th Annual Convention & AGM here.

He further underlined that to increase the participation of domestic industry, the government has reserved a certain portion of defence capital acquisition for domestic procurement.

"Out of the total defence capital budget outlay, 68 per cent of it is reserved for indigenous procurement by domestic industry and 25 per cent for the private sector. The results of these have now started appearing and more measures will be announced soon," he emphasised.

The government, he said, is also working to provide market access to the domestic industry to make them Aatmanirbhar.

Singh said that in the last few years, there has been a continuous increase in defence exports.

The government has already taken a series of steps including simplifying the FDI norms which have been increased to 74 per cent via automatic route and 100 per cent via government route, he added.

The Defence Minister also urged the domestic industry and foreign Original Equipment Manufacturers to invest in Indian defence sector by focusing on R&D, bringing in newer technologies and capital.

He added that India is making defence products not just for the domestic market but also to meet the global requirements. "The world is waiting for the products made in India," he claimed.

India has moved from the group of 'fragile 5' economies to 'fabulous 5 world economies' in the last nine years and registered itself as one of the fastest growing economies, the Defence Minister said on the occasion.

Sanjiv Mehta, President, FICCI, thanked the government for ushering in reforms in the process of defence acquisition and facilitating ease of doing business through the revision of the DPP 2016 as DAP 2020 and assured Industry's unstinted support for achieving the goal of 'Aatmanirbhar Raksha Utpadhan'.

Subhrakant Panda, President-Elect, FICCI said that the government's focus on 'Make In India' and 'Make for the World' is an impressive strategic move towards shedding its historical status of one the largest importer of defence equipment to a net exporter.