India to raise defence procurement from domestic market

Kolkata, Dec 19 (Inditop.com) India hopes to procure almost 70 percent of its defence hardware from domestic sources in the next 10 years, up from 30 percent now, Minister of State for Defence M.M. Pallam Raju said here Saturday.

“India imports nearly 70 percent of its total defence related requirement. We want to reverse that trend in the next five to 10 years time,” Pallam Raju said at a seminar organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

Talking about the country’s aerospace engineering segment, he said Indian companies had a lot of potential to cater to the domestic as well as international markets.

“Global aerospace companies have started looking at India as an outsourcing hub for technology and development,” the minister said.

“Currently, the aerospace industry worldwide spends about $60 billion globally on engineering, with India accounting for less than one percent of this, as compared to 12 percent offshoring of the overall engineering services.”

According to Pallam Raju, the value of offshored engineering services in aerospace in India was estimated at $700-800 million.

“This figure is expected to grow to $3 billion by 2020. If manufacturing is also included, this can also jump up to $10-12 billion,” he said.