Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has approved issuance of two Open General Export Licences (OGELs) for export of defence equipment to 14 countries.

An official statement said that this will give a boost to defence exports and enhance ease of doing business.

The application for grant of OGEL will be considered by Department of Defence Production (DPP) on a case-to-case basis. The countries allowed under the OGELs are: Belgium, France, Germany, Japan, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, UK, USA, Canada, Italy, Poland and Mexico. Export of items to a ‘Special Economic Zone’ is not permitted, the statement added.

The items permitted under OGEL include components of ammunition & fuse setting device without energetic and explosive material; firing control & related alerting and warning equipment and related system; and body protective items. Complete aircraft or complete unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and any components specially designed or modified for UAVs are excluded under this licence.

For acquiring the licences, the applicant is mandatory to have Import-Export certificate. The quarterly and end of the year reports on all the transactions done under OGELs should be submitted to DPP for examination and post-export verification.

The transfer of technology to the countries is subject to the condition that the export is an intra-company transfer from an Indian subsidiary (applicant exporter) to its foreign parent company and/or to subsidiaries of the foreign parent company. The OGEL is a one-time export licence to be granted to a company for a specific period (two years initially).

India’s defence exports have grown seven-fold over the last two years and reached to ₹10,500 crore in 2018-2019, the statement added.

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