Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh said on Friday that India has rapidly emerged as the third-largest exporter of arms to Europe over the last year, driven by demand under the Rearm Europe initiative. He made the remarks at the Agrasar Bharat Manch event, ANI reported.

Source: ANI via Devdiscourse — India became third-largest exporter of arms to Europe: Defence Secretary RK Singh (Oct 23, 2026)

Singh attributed the ranking to a Bloomberg report he had read the previous day. "Our exports have reached an all-time high of 38,424 crores, which is about 3.6 billion euros, and I was reading a Bloomberg report yesterday, which said that suddenly over the last year, India became the third largest exporter of arms to Europe, mainly because of the Rearm Europe initiative," he said, adding that standard ammunition, artillery shells and large- and small-calibre ammunition were exported to Europe in significant numbers. Awaaz Punjab is presenting the third-largest ranking as the Defence Secretary's statement citing Bloomberg, not as an independently verified league table.

Source: ANI via NewKerala — Rajesh Kumar Singh says India is third-largest arms exporter to Europe (Oct 23, 2026)

Singh said India's defence base has widened well beyond its traditional roughly 16 public-sector companies to almost 840 licensed large and medium companies and some 17,000 small and medium enterprises including startups, with domestic sales now almost 17 billion euros. Indian shipments, he said, range from helmets and bulletproof jackets to small arms, artillery and gun systems.

On policy, Singh said about 75 per cent of India's annual defence capital expenditure — somewhere between 20 and 25 billion dollars a year — is spent within the country, with priority for IDDM, meaning Indian-designed, developed and manufactured equipment, to ensure technological sovereignty.