President Mamnoon Hussain Wednesday said that public private partnership in defence production and export will help the government to formulate first-ever defence production and export policy framework of the country. The President said this while addressing the opening session of a two-day seminar on "Public Private Partnership in Defence Production and Export: Challenges and Way Forward," organised by Defence Export Promotion Organisation (DEPO), an arm of Ministry of Defence Production (MoDP) for promoting defence exports here.
Lauding the purpose of the seminar, he added that the seminar is the best example of public private partnership where both the public and private sector defence industry stakeholders as well as think tanks like CISS have got involved in the exercise of formulating policy recommendations for the government to enhance public-private partnership aimed at boosting defence research, development production and exports.
"I urge all the participants to direct their dedicated efforts for this important national cause," he added. Meanwhile, Federal Minister for Defence Production Rana Tanveer Hussain said the mission of the Ministry of Defense Production (MoDP) is to fulfil and meet the requirements of armed forces through both procurement and indigenous production of defense products and export the surplus output to the maximum extent possible.
''This goal has been directed towards attaining self-reliance in defence production so as to usher in a level of self-sufficiency and substituting imported defence equipments. In this endeavour public sector defence production organisations have reached some milestones which are worth mentioning,'' said the minister, adding that Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC) has manufactured JF-17 Thunder fighter jets, Mushak and Super Mushak trainer aircraft.
Heavy Industries Taxila manufactures Al-Khalid and Al-Zarrar tanks besides armoured personnel carriers, while Pakistan Ordnance Factory (POF) produces small arms and medium-sized weapon systems for armed forces. "All this indigenous defence production has met our national needs to the tune of $1.5b per annum. Had defence production units not been established, we would have spent this huge amount on imports from other countries," added Rana.
DG DEPO Major General Agha Masood Akram said: "I believe Pakistan today is at the cross roads of great developments in public-private partnership as there is huge scope for such activity in the defence industry. This area is pre-dominantly overshadowed by the public sector both in terms of infrastructure as well as financial investments. Across the world, arms trade is a highly competitive market." Currently, he added, the global defence spending is more than $1.7 trillion which is 2.3 percent of the Global GDP. "The state of conflicts around the world portends even higher spending in this sector in the future as nations have to improve their defence capabilities. In the past decade, Pakistan has been amongst the top 10 largest importers of defence equipment in the world," added DG DEPO.
He said even though import substitution is a high priority requirement being followed by our defence industry, there is huge potential available to utilise not just surplus capacity but also increase defence production through higher efficiency and economies of scale. "The only way to claim a larger share of the global arms market is through cost effective and competitive products. A pre-requisite for that is capacity building in our technical infrastructure and more importantly in our human resource development," reasoned DG DEPO.
He also thanked all the delegates and Dr Ismail Demir and the Turkish SSM delegation. He lauded the efforts of his team at DEPO, whose efforts made this event possible. He thanked Ambassador Ali Sarwar Naqvi and his team at CISS, as well the event managers Badar Expo Solutions.
Rana Tanveer Hussain Federal Minister for Defence Production, Lieutenant General Syed Muhammad Owais Secretary Ministry of Defence Production Major General Agha Masood Akram DG DEPO private entrepreneurs, representatives of the Armed Forces, academia, media and eminent speakers were also present on the occasion. It is pertinent to mention that the seminar is being organised in collaboration with Centre for International Strategic Studies (CISS). In the seminar, almost 50-70 eminent speakers from public and private sectors, academia, and industry will give their intellectual input.