US, France, Armenia emerge as India's top 3 defence export customers

"India is presently exporting military equipment to more than 100 nations across the world. The top three countries in the last financial year include the US, France and Armenia, official sources said on Sunday.

The Defence Ministry has been pushing defence exports and manufacturing in the country to improve domestic production of these equipment to meet internal and international requirements.

The sources said the exports to the US include a significant number of parts of aircraft and helicopters manufactured by Indian firms for global defence majors like Lockheed Martin and Boeing.

The exports to France include a lot of software and electronic equipment while the exports to Armenia include ATAGS artillery guns, Pinaka multi-barrel rocket launcher systems, Swathi weapon locating radars and other important systems.

Official sources said that the Defence Industrial Base has been expanding with the presence of 16 Defence public sector units, 430 firms with licenses along 16000 medium and small-scale enterprises.

Sources said the value of defence production in the country has gone up significantly since 2014-15.

"There has been around three times increase in value of production since 2014-15. While the Indian firms produced equipment worth Rs 46,429 crores in 2014-15, it has come to Rs 1.27,265 crores in the last fiscal," they said.

The contribution of the private sector in this value of production is 21 per cent. The major defence platforms produced in the Country include the LCA Tejas fighter jets, aircraft carriers, warships, submarines, Dhanush Artillery Gun system, MBT Arjun, Advanced towed artillery gun system Light Specialist Vehicles, High Mobility Vehicles, Weapon Locating Radar, 3D Tactical Control Radar, Software Defined Radios and Akash Missile System.