HAL scales up in world ranking to touch 45th position

Bangalore, July 17 (UNI) The Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) has climbed six notches up to reach the 45th ranking among the top 100 Defence companies in the world.

The list, released by US-based Defense News, has Lockheed Martin in the first position followed by Boeing, Northrop Grumman, BAe Systems and Raytheon in the next four positions respectively.

The ratings were given on the basis of the company's sales and turnover and HAL had leapt from the 51st slot last year to 45th this year. The better ranking was being attributed to a series of upgradation programmes and ongoing new projects, the company said in a release here today.

Reacting to the rating, HAL Chairman Mr Ashok K. Baweja said ''This is really encouraging for us and we are hopeful of breaking into the top 25-35 next year.'' ''We will further our rankings next year and our current or der book position is just a pointer to that,'' HAL Director (Finance) Mr D Shivamurti said.

HAL had joined a select-group of elite billion Dollar companies by recording annual sales of over Rs 5,335 crore during the financial year ending March 31, 2006. The company had recorded a growth of 18.5 per cent in turnover over the previous year. The Value of Production had also gone up by 16.4 per cent at Rs 5,750 crore, while the company's profit (PBT) soared to Rs 1,250 crore, which was an increase of over 32 per cent over its last year's performance.

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