US Ambassador to India Richard Verma today said cooperation in defence sector has grown manifolds even as both sides will now be producing defence products together with sales growing over $10 billion.

“US, India relationship has been on a solid and decidedly upward trajectory … In 2005, we had zero dollars in defence sales, we are now into well over $10 billion and even more significantly. We are now talking about building and producing defence items together,” Verma said while addressing a session on Indo-US Strategic and Commercial Dialogue organised by ORF.

He said over the years, on the strategic aspect of the relationship, India and US have deepened military-to-military relationship in conducting complex training exercises of all armed forces be it air, naval or army.

Malabar exercise

US, Japan and India recently concluded the Malabar exercise that took place in October. Prior to that in September, US and India also conducted a joint military exercise only for the armed forces called ‘Yudh Abhyas 2015'.

This year for the first time US military did a Special Forces exercise with the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).

“We will now do the ‘Red Flag’ exercise, which is confirmed in the spring of next year in Alaska. And if you think about what these exercises are, they are not simply paper or PowerPoint presentations to each other. These are our best fighters, men and women, coming together to talk about how we would respond to humanitarian crisis and also how we would employ force if necessary,” Verma said.

He also referred to the upcoming visit of Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar to US next week. Parrikar is going to be the first Defence Minister from India to visit a major combating command headquarters in Hawaii.

Boeing deal

Highlighting the fact that US is also producing defence items in India apart from selling those, he lauded Boeing’s effort to sign a $3-billion contract to produce Apache and Chinook Helicopters for the Indian Air Force.

“Much of the components (of these helicopters) will be made here in India,” he added.