Make-in-India’ will be the main theme of the five-day international aerospace exhibition ‘Aero India 2015’ starting February 18 in Bengaluru. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the expo which for the first time will also see an investors’ summit for exploring possibilities in Defence sector and more than 300 CEOs of Indian and foreign companies will participate in the summit.
The biennial exhibition held in Bengaluru since 1996, will see more than 600 companies including 295 Indian and 328 foreign displaying their merchandise while 75 aircraft and helicopters will also be on display. US is the largest exhibitor with 64 companies among 33 countries taking part. They include France(58), UK(48), Russia(41), Israel(25) and Germany(17) besides others.
Besides the investor’s summit to be chaired by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and attended by captains of Indian industry, the exhibition will also see seminars on issues like role of cyber security and expanding private public partnership in defence industrial sector in India, Secretary Defence Production G Mohan Kumar said here on Monday.
He said, “Make-in-India is the major theme and it will set the tone for the tenth five-day exhibition”, adding for the first time three States including Kerala, Karnataka and Gujarat have also set up stalls for attracting foreign and Indian investment in proposed special economic zones (SEZ) for producing Defence equipment. Moreover, this year’s edition will focus on issues like Defence manufacturing and airport infrastructure besides aerospace, Defence and civil aviation.
With the Modi Government laying stress on bolstering capabilities of small and medium industries in the Defence sector, the profile of this year’s exhibition has also changed, officials said. More small and medium industries from abroad and India are participating in the expo to explore possibilities for tie-ups.
This comes in the backdrop of the Government proposing to outsource a major chunk of manufacturing by Defence public sector undertakings and ordnance factories to small and medium scale units in the private sector. The objective is to nurture them and raise their level to tier one and two standards which are on a par with international standards, they said.
As regards the summit, speakers from leading Indian Defence industries including Tata, Mahindra, l&T, Adani, Bharat Forge and presidents of CII, FICCI, ASSOCHAM and PHD will share vision on Defence manufacturing in India.
India plan to procure weapon systems worth over 120 billion dollars in the next ten years and foreign and Indian companies participating in the expo are keen to bag a slice of this market, they said. Incidentally, US has emerged as the biggest supplier of arms to India in the last few years by bagging orders worth over ten billion dollars.