India to acquire latest technologies for defense: Minister

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency
New Delhi, Feb 5, IRNA -- India`s Secretary for Defense Production 
and Supplies, Uma Pillai, said that India is a large market and the 
low cost of production, availability of highly skilled manpower and 
industrial infrastructure, make joint ventures in India "an excellent 
commercial proposition." 
Delivering the inaugural address at a Seminar titled `Offsets and 
Research and Development`, at the 3rd defexpo 2004, Pragati Maidan, 
Pillai said, India could also serve as a production base for exports 
to "countries in the region." 
In the seminar organized jointly by the Confederation of Indian 
Industry (CII) and India`s Ministry of Defense, she said, "We have 
opportunities for joint ventures both in the public as well as the 
private sector". 
As an emerging and significant economic and military power, India 
would like to acquire the latest technologies for its vast industrial 
infrastructure, particularly defense, to meet the changed roles and 
challenges, she said. 
According to Pillai, the new industrial policy for the defence 
sector has created a congenial environment for joint ventures between 
the Indian industry and high technology concers across the globe, 
which may entail outright technology transfer, or joint production of 
state-of-art defence equipment. 
Pillai further said that India has large requirement for defence 
goods and services estimatd to be around Rs, 2,00,000 million yearly. 
"Of this, imports alone account for about Rs,1,00,000 million a year."
She commented "offsets are a measure of compensating the importing
country to partially neutralize the impact of import on the domestic 
industry. It is also regarded as a measure of the development of the 
indigenous industry by subjecting the exporting country to transfer of
technology, co-production, sub-contracts and establishment of local 
infrastructure, she added. 
Atul Kirloskar, Chairman, CII National Committee on Defense, in 
his remarks, said that India being one of the major arms importer, the
relevance of having an "offset" policy needs no elaboration. 
He said that one of the negative implications was the high price 
of procurement and while taking a short term view, the procurement 
costs would be higher. 
But, he added at the same time, if one look at other benefits 
associated with it, such as development of local industry, technology 
upgradation, employment generation etc, offsets did help. 
The day-long seminar was attended by Ministry of Defense 
officials, industry representatives and foreign delegates. 
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End
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India to acquire latest technologies for defense: Minister
