New Delhi: India is positioning itself as a hub for aircraft maintenance, repair & overhaul (MRO) activities and may collaborate with Malaysia in the sector.

Joint Secretary, Defence Industries Production in the Ministry of Defence Anurag Bajpai said this at a webinar on defence production collaboration with Malaysia.

A knowledge paper prepared by the Society of Indian Defence Manufacturers and consultancy KPMG was released during the webinar on Tuesday.

Addressing the webinar, Bajpai stressed that Indian defence products are of global standards and extremely cost effective.

He said India has a robust shipbuilding industry with an ecosystem of world class public and private shipbuilding companies.

The webinar on the theme ‘Indian Defence Industry Global Outreach for Collaborative Partnership’ was part of a series of webinars being organised with friendly foreign countries to boost defence exports.

India is aiming to achieve the defence export target of USD 5 billion by 2025.

As part of the fourth tranche of stimulus measures to boost the economy amid the coronavirus pandemic, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman last year said the government would take steps to make the country a hub for MRO of civil and defence aircraft.

Nine Indian companies, including Bharat Electronics Limited, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers, L&T Defence and Bharat Forge Limited, gave presentations on major defence platforms and products during the webinar

From the Malaysian side, Aerospace Technology Systems Corporation, AMP Corporation, DEFTECH Unmanned Systems and Innopeak SDN BHD made company presentations.