An export-focused department could help build on export successes like the recent sale of BrahMos missiles to the Philippines
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An export-focused department could help build on export successes like the recent sale of BrahMos missiles to the Philippines
Sandeep Unnithan New DelhiJanuary 19, 2022UPDATED: January 20, 2022 11:56 IST
BrahMos supersonic cruise missile, with major indigenous systems, successfully test-fired from ITR, at Chandipur, in Odisha on Sept. 30, 2019; (ANI Photo)
On January 14, the Philippines government announced it was purchasing BrahMos cruise missiles from India. The choice of both the missile and the platform the selection was announced on, turned some heads. In a Facebook post, Philippines’ Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said that his country was acquiring three batteries of the ground-launched cruise missiles for $374.96 million (Rs 2796.80 crore). BrahMos Aerospace Ltd, an Indo-Russian joint venture which makes the missiles, won the contract after a five-year evaluation process. The BrahMos was pitted against rival Israeli and Ukrainian missiles.
The BrahMos (a portmanteau of the Brahmaputra and Moskva rivers) is a variant of Russia’s Yakhont supersonic anti-ship missile. It has ground-launched, air-launched, sea- and underwater-launched versions and has been in service with the Indian armed forces for over 20 years. BrahMos Aerospace has pitched the missile to potential buyers in Brazil, UAE, South Africa, Malaysia, Chile and Indonesia for over a decade without success. The Philippines deal, defence officials say, not just brightens the BrahMos’ export potential with other clients, but also for an identical order for the Philippines army worth over $300 million.
Each coastal defence missile battery has six vehicles—three missile launch trucks each with two missiles, one missile loading truck, an Over the Horizon Radar and a command-and-control centre.
It is a deal with significant geopolitical consequences. Philippines is currently locked in a territorial dispute over the South China Sea with China. It needs the mobile supersonic missiles each with a range of 290 km to deter intruding Chinese ships. (Interestingly, the deal has been okayed at the highest levels in Moscow, a close ally of Beijing). The BrahMos missile systems are air-portable and can be flown in the Philippine air force C-130 transport aircraft and rapidly deployed for launch.
Defence exports are a pillar of the government’s drive to attain self-sufficiency in defence production. The Ministry of defence (MoD) informed parliament last December that India had exported defence equipment worth Rs 8,434 crore in 2020-21, compared to Rs 1,940 crore in 2014-15. Over 30 Indian defence companies have exported arms and equipment to countries like Italy, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Russia, France, Nepal, Mauritius, Sri Lanka, Israel, Egypt, UAE, Bhutan, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Philippines, Poland, Spain and Chile. The exports include personal protective items, defence electronics systems, engineering mechanical equipment, offshore patrol vessels, advanced light helicopters, avionics suits, radio systems and radar systems.
In 2020, the MoD targeted defence exports of Rs 35,000 crore ($5 billion) till 2024. In order to achieve this target, a 2020 KPMG report says, defence exports have to grow at over 40 per cent until 2024. There is however a huge gap between intent and action. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) ranked India at number 23 in the list of major arms exporters for 2015-2019. India still accounts for only 0.17 per cent of global arms exports. This is why India’s MoD needs to study best practises of the biggest arms exporting countries. Most of these countries have successfully sold arms worth billions of dollars to New Delhi and enriched their own R&D base, generated jobs in the high-technology defence sector and created diplomatic leverage for their governments.
The US, the world’s largest arms exporter, has a Bureau of Political-Military affairs that oversees defence exports. Israel, the world’s eighth-largest defence exporter has a dedicated defence exporting agency called SIBAT under its defence ministry. India’s MoD so far has no such dedicated agency to drive exports. Exports are left to individual corporations, like BrahMos or the defence public shipyards and undertakings. India’s private sector defence firms are pretty much on their own. In March 2020, Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) bagged a $30 million dollar order to sell four Swathi Weapon Locating Radars to Armenia. For every success story like the BrahMos there are numerous others where Indians firms were missing in action.
Not surprisingly for a system unused to using defence exports as political leverage, the battles for exporting the BrahMos all lay within the Indian system. The sale was initially questioned by the MEA, which evidently was worried it could upset the Chinese government. “The biggest thing was to get our government to grant us export clearance,” says a defence official familiar with the negotiations.
The success in the Philippines, says an official familiar with the deal, was largely the work of two key officials—former BrahMos Aerospace CEO Sudhir Misra and India’s current ambassador to the Philippines, Shambhu Kumaran. Misra, a senior DRDO scientist was BrahMos CEO until last December. It also helped that Kumaran was earlier joint secretary, Planning and International Corporation (PIC), a key MEA post in the MoD to leverage defence cooperation with friendly countries.
A dedicated agency focused only on defence exports would not only onboard scientists like Misra, bureacrats like Kumaran, but also defence industry experts to identify global export opportunities and link them with Indian domestic manufacturers to create global partnerships. It could hand-hold component level manufacturers and help original equipment manufacturers of indigenous weapon systems like warships, missile and artillery systems to identify foreign buyers.
A June 2020 KPMG report titled ‘Defence Exports: Untapped Potential’ makes the case for such a dedicated department. The department would “need to identify existing opportunities, create new horizons, facilitate G2G deals, establish lineages with domestic industry, handhold potential suppliers and establish partnerships”, the report says.
The report recommends a first step of setting up of an exclusive “defence export help desk”. On the basis of inputs from the help-desk, the report says, Indian companies could work with government machinery to realise exports. Indian arms could greatly benefit from a government hand.
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