Harish calls for cooperative PPP
General Bipin Rawat, Chief of Defence Staff, said time is now right for the industry to seize the opportunities and achieve strategic interdependence in defence manufacturing and make India a net exporter of defence equipment.
This is possible amidst the host of initiatives taken by the government to boost domestic defence industry, said Gen Rawat.
“India’s aspirations of being a regional power can no longer be held hostage to arms import,” he told an e-Symposium on ‘Catalysing Defence Exports’, organized by FICCI on 9 Sept 2020.
“It is imperative for us to invest in building long-term indigenous capabilities on the application of decisive military power which will also give us the benefit of increasing our defence exports in the future.
“All stakeholders must play a key role in developing the desired defence ecosystem,” added the General.
To boost the defence industry and export of defence products, Gen Rawat emphasized on the need to relook the Make in India policy.
“Make in India theme may be relooked with three broad objectives viz. Make in India for import substitution, Make in India for sustained domestic demand and Make in India for global exports,” he pointed out.
He further said that there is a need for well thought out defence export strategies on economic viability and sustained growth for the defence industry.
Gen. Rawat said that recent announcements by the govt including the negative import list, increasing the FDI limit, separate budget provisions are some of the initiatives that will lead to a comprehensive defence ecological system within the MSME sector.
“The MSMEs as tier-2 and 3 suppliers, startups as innovators and industry houses as aggregators, quality assurance services, and academia must work in synergy to come up with world-class defence products,” stated the General.
“We need to revamp our ordnance factories and other defence PSUs in terms of modernization, work culture and quality control.
“Corporatization including a public listing of some units would be the way forward to ensure a more efficient interface with the designer and the end-user,” stressed Gen. Rawat.
The General’s call for stronger defence manufacturing and export industry was supported by leaders in the sector.
To achieve the defence export target, there is a need to develop smart strategies and a dedicated National Defence Exports mission to catalyse defence exports, according to Arun T Ramchandani, Co-Chair, FICCI Defence & Aerospace Committee and EVP, Guns Missiles & Armoured Systems (GMA) BU, L&T Defence.
“We need to look at a cooperative partnership between the private and the public sector,” added P Harish, Additional Secretary (ER), Ministry of External Affairs.
Harish also assured the industry of full support and said that defence diplomacy plays an important role in boosting the Indian defence sector. “We need to look at it as ‘Team India’ and not as private sector versus public sector undertaking,” he added.
Sanjay Jaju, Joint Secretary (DIP), Ministry of Defence, informed that the lines of credit are open for both the public and private sectors.
“We are ready to roll out US$2 billion every year depending on the requirements of the host countries.”
Jaju further added that government approach in promoting industry for exports by facilitating the EODB and projecting One India at international events.
Neeraj Gupta, Managing Director, MKU Limited said that the government should extend the lines of credit to more and more countries especially in the area of defence exports. This will act as an enabler for our defence exports, he said. #manufacturing #exports #defence #industry #MakeinIndia #investments /fiinews.com
