Pakistan Defence Exports: Way forward to enhance the capability
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ISLAMABAD: (APP) Minister for Defence Production Rana Tanveer Hussain Wednesday underlined the need for setting up a company to promote exports of the defence products in a more efficient manner.
"Although, regular exhibitions of defence products are held at different level, but we should create our own company, having professionals and experts, for effective marketing of the products," he said while responding to a suggestion of MNA Shehryar Afridi in a meeting of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Defence Production.
The meeting was chaired by Khawaja Sohail Mansoor and attended among others by MNAs Muhammad Khan Daha, Dr Ramesh Kumar Vankwani, Chaudhry Hamid Hameed, Muhammad Moeen Wattoo, Sardar Muhammad Amjad Farooq Khan Khosa, Bhawan Das, Amra Khan, Muhammad Qasim Noon, Iffat Liaqat, Shehryar Afridi, Ayesha Gulalai, Asiya Nasir and Bilal Rehman, Besides Secretary Defence production Lt Gen (Retd) Syed Muhammad and Director General Military Vehicles Research and Development Establishment (MVRDE) Major General Muazzam Ali.
Shehryar Afridi had suggested that every defence production unit should have its own export promotion team so that each and every product could be introduced in the world markets under an improved mechanism. "The country has such a potential that it can do wonders in this field, but there is the just need of tapping it," he said.
Mostly, the minister said, defence production departments had their own arrangements for showcasing their products in different exhibitions at national and international level.
He said the country's defence exports had witnessed significant increase during that last three years, adding that when the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government came into power in 2013, the Karachi Shipyard Engineering and Works (KSEW) and Heavy Industries Taxila (HIT) were running in loss but now they had been turned into profit earning entities.
Now, the body observed that Pakistan was considered a good competitor in international market due to quality of the defence products being developed indigenously.
The chairman said he visited various defence production units and witnessed that all were working on their full capacity to meet needs of the armed forces, as the country was in the state of war.
He recommended that there should be an industrial zone for defence products so that the potential of skilled labour of the Darra Adam Khel could be utilized positively.
