India has emerged as the third-largest exporter of arms to Europe, Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh told journalists in New Delhi on Friday, IANS reported. Singh said he was citing a Bloomberg report published a day earlier, and linked the rise over the past year to Europe's ReArm Europe rearmament initiative.

Source: IANS via Hi India

"Our exports have reached an all-time high of Rs 38,424 crore, which is about 3.6 billion euros," Singh said, according to IANS. Official figures cited by SarkariTel put the FY 2025-26 total 62.66 per cent above the Rs 23,622 crore recorded in FY 2024-25 — yaani exports rose by roughly Rs 14,800 crore in a single year.

Source: SarkariTel (Ministry of Defence figures)

Singh said the surge to Europe was driven mainly by standard ammunition — artillery shells and large- and small-calibre rounds — shipped in significant numbers. India's export basket also includes small arms, helmets, bulletproof jackets and other tactical equipment, and he said buyers in Southeast Asia were in negotiations for components, small arms and artillery gun systems.

Source: IANS via Hi India

He credited a much wider industrial base built over the last 10 years: besides 16 large public-sector companies, India now has almost 840 large and medium private firms with industrial licences and some 17,000 small enterprises, including startups, with domestic defence sales of almost 17 billion euros, IANS reported via NewKerala.

Source: IANS via NewKerala

The government aims to spend 75 per cent of its annual defence capital expenditure — which Singh put at about 20 to 25 billion dollars a year — within the country, giving priority to Indian-designed, developed and manufactured (IDDM) products to protect technological sovereignty, he said.

Source: IANS via Hi India