We want to make India a defence manufacturing hub: Rajnath Singh

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Wednesday attended the inaugural ceremony of the Defence Expo 2020 in Lucknow and said that the central government is working towards making India a hub of defence manufacturing.

Singh, who is also a Member of Parliament from Lucknow, the host city of this year's Expo, said, "We want to make India a defence manufacturing hub."

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Uttar Pradesh Governor Anandiben Patel and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath are also present for the inaugural event.

Earlier in the day, the Defence Minister of Oman M Sayyid Badr bin Saud Al Busaidi had held a meeting with Raksha Mantri Rajnath Singh in Lucknow.

Oman's Defence Minister was accompanied by a high-level delegation and will be attending the Defence Expo India being held in Lucknow.

The event promises to bring in new technologies and technological solutions, where defence manufacturing companies from India and abroad will showcase their products and services in the defence arena on a single platform, the Ministry said in a statement.

The main theme of this year's event is 'India: The Emerging Defence Manufacturing Hub' and the focus will be on 'Digital Transformation of Defence'.

As many as 1028 companies have registered for participating in this year's event, as against 702 in the DefExpo 2018. The number of participating foreign companies have also increased to 172 from the previous figure of 160.