NEW DELHI - India's defense exports reached an all-time high of approximately 160 billion Indian rupees ($1.94 billion) during the 2022-23 financial year (April 2022-March 2023), showed data released by the Defense Ministry on Saturday.

The figure marks an increase of around 30 billion Indian rupees ($365 million) over the previous financial year, and a rise of over 10 times since 2016-17.

"India is now exporting to over 85 countries. Indian industry has shown its capability of design and development to the world, with 100 firms exporting defense products at present," the ministry said in a statement.

In order to boost defense product export, the Indian government in the past five to six years took a number of policy initiatives and carried out reforms, including streamlining export procedures and making the industry more friendly in doing business with end-to-end online export authorization to curtail delays.