Monday, June 13 2005 08:23 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: A number of major armament producing companies in Russia, the United States and France have offered to transfer their state-of-the-art manufacturing capabilities to India, Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee has said.

"There has been a real paradigm change. For instance, some of the companies from different parts of the world want to have their manufacturing units in India," he told Doordarshan in an interview telecast last night (Jun 12, 2005).

Mukherjee said Russian companies, mainly the State-owned, and some private sector companies in the US and France have shown interest in transferring some of their manufacturing units to India.

This was because of the technical competence and skill of Indian workers, engineers and scientists and relatively less cost of labour, he said.

"Therefore, it will be economically advantageous to them and we have that absorbing capacity," Mukherjee said adding he would, however, like to depend on India's own capability and strength to meet the country's needs.