Bengaluru: Raksha Mantri Rajnath Singh on Tuesday invited global OEMs to participate in various stages of manufacturing defence products in India to make for the world.
The minister said this in a meeting with the CEOs of Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) on the sidelines of Aero India being held at Yelahanka Airforce Station here in the city.
During the interaction, he highlighted that India offers significant advantages of competitive land costs, skilled human capital, a vibrant startup ecosystem and a huge domestic defence market to the Global Defence industry.
He described this as a win-win situation where defence manufacturing companies from across the world can become a part of the Indian growth story.
Rajnath emphasised the importance of the defence sector for India saying, “Defence production meets the twin goals of becoming self-reliant in a critical sector as well as generating jobs for our people.”
He also mentioned the incentives given by Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu state governments for investment in Defence Industrial Corridors, central government policies promoting FDI and defence manufacturing in India, the strong legal system protecting stakeholders’ interests and improvements in ease of doing business.
“There are opportunities to co-develop, co-produce, integrate and strengthen supply chains, from Joint Ventures, set up manufacturing in India and make for the world,” he said.
The CEOs gave their suggestions to facilitate Global investment in Indian Defence Manufacturing and Raksha Mantri assured them of government efforts to remove regulatory hurdles for private industry.
CEOs and senior management of General Atomics, Safran, Boeing, Embraer and Rafael Advanced Defence Systems attended the interaction. Defence Secretary Shri Giridhar Aramane, DG (Acquisition) Pankaj Agrawal, Additional Secretary, Defence Production Shri T Natarajan and other senior officials of the Ministry of Defence were also present.
