GRSE eyeing to tap export market: CMD

India's leading shipyard Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers Ltd (GRSE) is now eyeing to tap export market, a top GRSE official said today.
GRSE Chairman and Managing Director Rear Admiral A K Verma said it will be for the first time that GRSE will be exporting an off-shore patrol vessel to Mauritius.
GRSE is all set to export its first consignment to Mauritius by end of this year, Verma said here while speaking in a seminar organised by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Jamshedpur chapter, on 'Vendor Connect' with focus on Industry Defence linkage.
Talking to reporters here, Verma said four or five more countries are in talk with us but did not elaborate.

Claiming that Indian Navy has become 99 per cent Indigenised, Verma said GRSE will be developing 44 warships in next 10 years, including 16 at its Kolkata shipyard.
Appreciating enhanced FDI in defence sector, he said it would help us to procure the technology, wherever it needed, and manufacture the components in the country.

At present, 20 per cent of the defence requirement particularly in equipment and service sector was happening from MSMEs, the GRSE Chairman and Managing Director said.
GRSE, which is building the first four Anti-Submarine Warfare Corvettes (ASWCs) for the country, has delivered the 1st of the class (INS Kamorta) in July last to the Indian Navy.

Addressing the gathering on the occasion, Group Captain P K Anand, Command Indigenisation Officer, Indian Air Force, Nagpur, emphasised the need for Indigenisation of defence sector as no (no) nation can aspire to be powerful to reckon with on borrowed strength.
Deputy Director General, Ordinance Factory Board, Kolkata, Atul Gupta explained the vast opportunities available for the MSMEs in defence sector.