Local Arms Production Making Good Headway?

HERE'S been a significant shake-up in the massive $650 billion global armaments industry following the Ukraine war; and India too seems to be making a splash with a reduction in arms imports.

- GURBIR SINGH

Is this a pointer to growing indigenization of defense production? It's been talked about, but for decades has moved at a snail's pace. Is that changing now?

India, which was the world's top arms importer till last year, accounting for 9.8 percent of armaments purchase, has now gone down a notch this year becoming the second largest, with imports falling by 9.3 percent between 2015-19 and 2020-24.

What is most significant is the steady decline in purchases from Russia, India's main defense partner. The latest data shows, while Russia continued to be the largest seller of arms to India with a 36 percent share, there was a perceptible decline from 2015-19 (55 percent) and 2010-14 (72 percent), according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) which releases annual trade figures.

The Ukraine war has been the main cause of the churn. The country has been fighting for survival since Russia's invasion in February 2022, and became the world's largest importer of major arms in the period 2020-24. Its imports increased nearly 100 times over 2015-19. European arms imports too grew by 155 per cent in the same period in response to the Russian threat.