Releasing the findings, ASSOCHAM President, Mr. Sajjan Jindal, said that if India wishes to break into the global market as US, Russia, Europe and even Israel have done, it will have to be serious about funding export driven products, and making export-specific variants of its high end systems.  Currently India’s spending on defence R&D is a meager 2% to 4% of its budget. USA more than doubled its defence spending in 2000-08, to six times more than that of the European countries combined. 

Defence R&D is the ‘Seed Corn’ for transformational technologies and systems, emphasizes the joint paper.  Serious initiatives are required to strengthen India’s defence R&D base through the increased involvement of all players, whether private or public, Indian or foreign. Defence R&D and its integration into product improvement and development is an exceedingly complex and exacting process. This involves collaborative and networking techniques, in order to ensure that the output of research establishments is effectively translated into viable, state-of-the-art products.Your browser may not support display of this image. 
 
It is recommended that the Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO) focus on basic research related to strategic defence equipment. The private sector could be engaged in defence R&D, especially in products design and development. Private sector expertise could also be effectively used to commercialise and market defence research. Emphasis needs to be laid on a structured and time-bound approach to development projects, and the need for involving the private sector right from the inception stage.
 
Development of export policies is also required. In order to increase defence exports, the Indian domestic defence industry needs to be made sufficiently competitive to sustain the demands of the Indian defence industry, as well as to meet export orders.  Increased private sector participation will make the domestic market more competitive which, in turn, could improve export competitiveness. 

Integration with the global value chain also needs to be recognized.  India needs to work in association with developed defence industries to attain state-of-the-art technologies and products. Such an association will also boost the export competitiveness of Indian arms exporters in the global defence industry. Once India becomes a part of the global value chain, greater focus on R&D, and product design and development, need to be undertaken to maintain competitiveness.

The concept of India being a significant player in the international arms trade has to be acknowledged and pursued with concentration and vigour, by the entire defence establishment.
 
The Paper concluded that stiff competition, and the escalating financial and technological demands of state-of-the-art arms production have increasingly driven foreign arms manufacturers to look beyond their own national borders, in order to leverage technological breakthroughs, and India must learn from this experience.