Bangalore: Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) expects to benefit significantly from the government's defence offset policy, said company chairman and managing director Ashwani Kumar Datt here on Tuesday. Defence offsets will be a key growth area for the state-owned defence electronics giant, which produces everything from solar –powered panels to radars to air-to- surface missiles. 

Addressing the media to discuss the company's performance in the fiscal 2010-11, Datt said BEL expected to get about 8 per cent of the anticipated total defence offset business of $3-5 billion in the next 3-5 years. ''Defence offsets will remain a key growth area for BEL,'' he said.

BEL's provisional sales turnover amounted to Rs5,550 crores in 2010-11, compared to Rs5,220 crore in the previous year, an increase of 6.3 per cent. The pre-tax profit amounted to Rs1,120 crore, an increase of 7 per cent.

Exports increased to $41.89 million from $23.65 million, an increase of 77 per cent.

Datt said the sharp increase in the company's order book position, from Rs11,350 crore at the end of 2009-10 to Rs23,600 crore at the end of 2010-11, would enable BEL to make plans for the future.

The company had an export order book of $66.3 million and an offset order book of $42.28 million at the end of the last fiscal.

The company's involvement in the medium range surface-to-air Akash missile programme had resulted in the weapon systems category contributing about four per cent to the company's turnover, Datt said. ''This will be an important contributor to our revenues in the future,'' he said.

Datt attributed the slippages in reaching the targeted revenue of Rs5,700 crore for 2010-11 to BEL not bagging the coastal surveillance system order from the defence forces. ''If we had bagged this order, we would have had additional revenues of about Rs300 crore,'' Mr. Datt said. ''This order may materialise in July,'' he added.

A burgeoning order book allows BEL to recruit about 350 engineers every year, Datt said. However, it may recruit an additional 200 in the current year, for work at its Bangalore complex.