After East Asia, MENA Region Likely To Become Potential Market For BrahMos Missile

With India looking to increase its defence exports, its friendly countries in the Middle East and North African (MENA) region are showing keen interest in the ground and air-launched version of the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile.

India has the capability of launching supersonic cruise missiles that can now hit targets beyond 450 km and has deployed these planes in different parts of the country.

“Some friendly countries in the MENA region operates Sukhoi-30 fighter jets, which can be equipped with the BrahMos. They have shown interest in having this strong capability and discussions have been held with them,” according to some reports.

The delegations from these countries have also met the BrahMos teams to know the capabilities of the missile and its potential, the report added.

Experts said that BrahMos Aerospace has achieved major success in the Philippines, where it has received orders for batteries of BrahMos missiles, which are to be supplied to them in the future.

The land-attack versions of the missile are also being considered by some of the countries there and a push from India is being given at the senior level.

BrahMos Aerospace chairman Atul D Rane has been focusing more on increasing exports of missile systems in line with India’s target of exporting military hardware worth USD 5 billion in 2025.

Recently, the Indian Navy placed orders for Rs 19,000 crore to buy more than 200 of these missiles, which came to be deployed in anti-ship and land attack roles by the force.

Doctoral Fellow at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Martand Jha said that India has been exporting defence equipment to the African sub-continent substantially in the last decade and India sees Africa as an emerging market for defence exports.

“On India’s part, the idea is to increase the exports to double digits – which means increasing the proportion of India’s total defence exports to African countries beyond 10 per cent consistently and this idea is also to compete with China which has captured African markets. Also, India shares good relations with many African nations, so, it is natural for India to think in terms of increasing its defence exports to Africa,” Jha said.

India’s defence exports achieved an all-time high of Rs 15,920 crore in 2022-2023. According to government data, the country’s defence exports in 2021-22 were Rs 12,814 crore, Rs 8,434 crore in 2020-21, Rs 9,115 crore in 2019-20, Rs 10,745 crore in 2018-19, Rs 4,682 crore in 2017-18 and Rs 1,521 crore in 2016-17.