Foreign cos wooed to invest in defence sector

NEW DELHI: Defence minister Rajnath Singh has asked friendly foreign countries and defence companies to explore opportunities and invest in defence, aerospace and warship-building industries in India, which is determined to emerge as a major hub for manufacturing and maintaining weapon systems and platforms.
India is working towards achieving a $25 billion turnover in aerospace, defence goods and services by 2025, with exports of $5 billion, said Singh, while addressing around 200 ambassadors, heads of missions and defence attaches of over 75 nations through video-conferencing on Wednesday. ‘Aero India-2021’, which will be held at Bengaluru from February 3 to 7, will provide an ideal platform to hold government-to-government talks and explore business opportunities in the defence production sector in India.
Listing out steps undertaken by the government, from hiking FDI to 74% in defence production to revised offset guidelines to promote for co-development and co-production, Singh said a new category of ‘Buy (global-manufacture in India)’ has also been introduced in the Defence Acquisition Procedure-2020.