Defence products witnessed 35pc surge in three years, says minister

ISLAMABAD: Minister for Defence Production Rana Tanveer Hussain on Wednesday said that defence products witnessed a surge of 35 percent in three years and underlined the need for setting up a company to promote exports of defence products in a more efficient manner.

“Although regular exhibitions of defence products are held at different levels, 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’s 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 potential that it can do wonders in this field but there is the 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 levels.

He said the country’s defence exports had witnessed a significant increase during the last three years adding 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.

The NA standing committee observed that Pakistan was now 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 at their full capacity to meet the needs of the armed forces as the country was in a 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 utilised positively.

 - Originally published in The News