Prime Minister Narendra Modi today said that India has immense opportunities in defence manufacturing sector and favourable policies of his government has helped in doing business in this field.

He was speaking in Lucknow after inaugurating the 11th edition of the DefExpo, a flagship biennial event of the Ministry of Defence. On this occasion, he stressed that significant reforms were rolled out in last five years to promote domestic defence production and today there is a perfect environment for investment and innovation in the country.

Mr Modi said that in the last few years defence export has grown to 17 thousand crore rupees and the aim is to now make it 35 thousand crore rupees by 2024.

He said, Defence forces are eyeing new technology to deal with new threats as the world is facing challenges of misuse of technology, terrorism and cyber threat. The Prime Minister stressed that our defence preparedness is not aimed at any country as India a reliable contributor to world peace.

The Prime Minister suggested that major industry bodies should form a common platform to get the most benefits of development and production technology in the field of defence production.

Terming the DEFEXPO event, a big opportunity for the youth of country, he expressed confidence that it will pave way for new job avenues. He said, it is not just the biggest DEFEXPO ever in country but has also become one of the top Defence exhibitions of the world. Mr. Modi said that in future Uttar Pradesh will be one of the biggest hubs of defence production in the country.

Talking about the employment generation through defence corridors Mr. Modi said that the two Defence corridors in Tamilnadu and Uttar Pradesh will attract 20 lakh crore rupees investment in next few years. Making an outline of the future goals in this field, he said that their aim is to increase number of MSME units in defence production to 15 thousand in coming years and also in the coming 5 years around 5 thousand components of different defence products will be Indianized.

During his address on the occasion, Defence Minister Rajnath singh said that Policy, Production and Partnership are 3 important Ps of India’s defence production.