Article Posted on : - Jul 19, 2019

NEW DELHI (PTI): The defence export authorisation touched Rs 10,745 crore during 2018-19, a growth of more than 100 per cent over the corresponding value in the fiscal 2017-18, the Defence Ministry has said in a report.

In its 2018-19 annual report, the Ministry also said over one dozen reforms or steps taken during the last fiscal have provided a "big boost" to defence exports in the country.

"As a result, the authorisation for defence exports in the country has seen quantum jump in the last two years.

"The defence export authorisation has touched Rs 10,745 crore during 2018-19, a growth of over 100 per cent over 2017-18 when the authorisation was Rs 4,682 crore and over 800 per cent since 2016-17 when the defence authorisation was Rs 1,521 crore," the report said.

Further, due to several measures taken to enhance ease of doing business in exports by reforming export permission processes and developing a completely end-to-end online portal for receiving and processing authorisation permissions, the time taken for authorisation has reduced to less than 50 per cent of the time taken in 2017-18, it said.

"New export offices have been opened by Defence PSU, BEL. The BEL opened an export office in Hanoi, Vietnam on June 13, 2018 and another export office in Myanmar," the report said.

The Ministry in the report said this "exponential growth" is a notable success of 'Make in India' in defence and gives confidence that the country is moving towards becoming a net exporter of defence equipment or platforms after being one of the world's biggest importers of defence equipment for decades.