India Exim Bank Report: India Top Defence Exporter in Africa

November 2, 2022

The report titled ‘Reinvigorating India’s Economic Engagements with Southern Africa’ was released on November 1 by the India Exim Bank at the event “CII-Exim Bank Regional Conclave on India-Southern Africa Growth Partnership” held in Johannesburg.

What are the key findings of the report?

India has emerged as the top defence exporter to Africa. It may fulfil the continent’s maritime, aerospace and defence needs in the future.
Mauritius, Mozambique and Seychelles are the top importers of Made-in-India arms between 2017 and 2021.
Within Africa, Mauritius accounted for 6.6 per cent of defence exports from India in 2017-2021. Mozambique accounted for 5 per cent and Seychelles accounted for 2.3 per cent of defence exports.
The report highlighted the important role played by India and 9 Indian Ocean littoral countries (IOLC) in Africa in enhancing maritime security in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). The 9 IOLC are Comoros, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Seychelles, Somalia, South Africa, and Tanzania.
The report recommended a shift from the current need-based approach and the focus on training, capacity building and humanitarian assistance.
Rather, it called for increasing cooperation in areas of aerospace, defence and maritime equipment and vessels to improve security and technological capability of Africa.
It also recommended accelerating India’s defence export target of 5 billion USD by 2025.
Currently, Indian military vehicle manufacturers like Tata Motors and Ashok Leyland are already playing a major role in the defence export to Africa.
Focusing on areas like indigenously-developed new age technologies in maritime segments, including unmanned underwater systems, unmanned aerial systems and drones, can boost defence exports further.
The report also recognized cyber security as another potential area for increasing ties with African countries.
With the increase in mobile smart device ownership and the popularity of social media, Africa is a major market for the adoption of new technologies. India currently has an advanced cyber security infrastructure, a dedicated National Cyber Security and a nodal agency CERT-In (Computer Emergency Response Team). This expertise and experience can be shared to the African countries to address cyber threats arising from increasing penetration of smart technologies.

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