With about Rs 3.4 lakh crore (USD 50.7 billion) spent this year on defence, India has entered into the list of world's top five defence spenders, overtaking Saudi Arabia and Russia, according to a new report released today.
The US remained way ahead of the world with a budget of Rs 40 lakh crore (USD 622 billion), followed by China at Rs 12 lakh crore (USD 191.7 billion) while the UK spent over Rs 3.6 lakh crore (USD 53.8 billion) on defence this year. According to the '2016 Jane's Defence Budgets Report', Saudi Arabia spent about Rs 3.3 lakh crore (USD 48.68 billion) and Russia about Rs Rs 3.2 lakh crore (USD 48.44 billion) on their defence budget.
The report further predicted that India is set to overtake Britain with the third-largest defence budget by 2018 as a result of its modernisation drive.
"Procurement spending has been constrained in India over the last three years as personnel costs have increased. However, what we expect to see from 2017 onwards is a military focused on modernisation. India needs new equipment to fulfil its modernisation drive. Over the next three years, India will re-emerge as a key growth market for defence suppliers," said Craig Caffrey, principal analyst for Asia-Pacific at 'HIS Janes'.
The worldwide outlook shows that global defence spending rose by 1 per cent to $1.6 trillion this year, against 0.6 per cent in 2015.
This rise has been attributed largely to strategic threats posed by Russia and the Islamic State terror group in the Middle East.
"Defence spending returned to a healthy rate of growth in 2016, kicking off what we expect to be a decade of stronger global defence spending," said Fenella McGerty, principal analyst at 'IHS Janes'.
By 2020, China is forecast to be spending more than the whole of western Europe on defence and by 2025, more than all the states in the Asia-Pacific region combined.
(With PTI inputs)
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