The story so far: India’s defence exports have increased from ₹1,521 crore in 2016-17 to ₹8,434.84 crore in 2020-21. The figure stood at ₹10,745 crore in 2018-19. The Government has set an ambitious target to achieve exports of about ₹35,000 crore ($5 billion) in aerospace and defence goods and services by 2025.
According to the latest report of the Swedish think tank Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), three Indian companies figure among the top 100 defence companies in the 2020 rankings — Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), Ordnance Factory Board and Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL). “Their aggregated arms sales of $6.5 billion were 1.7% higher in 2020 than in 2019 and accounted for 1.2% of the top 100 total,” the report, released earlier this month, said.