The four-day 12th edition of the International Defence Exhibition and Seminar (IDEAS) 2024 kicked off recently at Karachi’s Expo Centre. Some 560 defence manufacturers, 333 of them international, showcased their defence and military products. Turkiye and China were the biggest participants, while Iran and Italy participated for the first time.
IDEAS serves as a regional gateway for international manufacturers and suppliers to explore new avenues of defence cooperation through joint ventures, outsourcing, and collaboration with local defence manufacturers, mainly small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which supply components to the local public sector defence infrastructure.
The event also showcased Pakistan’s advancements in the defence industry, with Indigenous products meeting international standards, reflecting the nation’s progress toward self-reliance. It showcased Pakistan’s military prowess, technological advancements, and unwavering commitment to peace and regional stability. Pakistan primarily showcased its domestically produced Haider Main Battle Tank (MBT) and new medium-altitude long-endurance Shahpar III drone, aside from Al-Khalid and Al-Zarrar tanks and the latest model of the Super Mushshak Aircraft.
Pakistan’s defence industry has now reached the threshold of quality and reliability, with its products competing in the international defence market. However, Pakistan has the potential to emerge as a global platform for defence research, scientific growth, manufacturing and exports through increasing collaboration with the local private sector.
At the regional level, Iran is far ahead in defence capabilities and has an ambitious space program, in which it has invited its private sector. Recently, a Russian rocket launched two privately built Iranian satellites into orbit. The imaging and communications satellites were designed and built by Iran´s Omid Faza-a private sector company, and will support agriculture, environmental monitoring and communications in remote areas. Thus, a decisive first step has been taken towards the entry of the private sector of the Islamic Republic of Iran into the space sphere.
Also, India’s defence sector is increasingly going into collaboration with international arms manufacturers and incorporating the local private sector to indiginise its defence sector. At the international level, Elon Musk is leading the way in the race for Mars and his company X, is challenging NASA viz a viz its innovational capabilities in its space program. Recently, in a momentous development, the Space X rocket self-docked itself, thus showcasing the innovative capabilities of Space X.
Similarly, in America and other Western countries, there are large private sector defence corporations which vie with each other to provide complete cutting-edge products and product platforms to their army, navy and air force. This helps these countries to keep their militaries supplied with innovative products at competitive prices. Such practices also help their defence corporations to sell their proven defence products/ product platforms to the interested countries thus earning huge profits which are again ploughed into R&D to develop further futuristic products and platforms.
Thus, the IDEAS 2024 and regional and international trends underscore the importance of private-sector technological collaboration and innovation in strengthening Pakistan’s public sector defence capabilities. The importance of nurturing emerging talent and enhancing local industry capabilities is of paramount importance in developing the Indigenous defence sector, for which a two-pronged approach is necessary. First, the promotion of promising small and medium enterprises (SMEs), to foster a robust ecosystem to drive innovation and growth in the defence sector.
However, given their size, SMEs can only produce small components and do not possess the resources for extensive R&D to offer complete products or product platforms, which therefore necessitates the incorporation of cooperation of various large organisations, with sufficient resources, operating in different sectors of Pakistan such as steel, cement, fertilizer, sugar. Such an approach will not only help to reduce the size but also increase the efficiency and capabilities of the government-owned defence sector; and also positively affect the defence expenditure.
Thus, it is imperative we follow regional and international trends and privatize our defence production to provide our forces with innovative solutions to their needs in an efficient and self-reliant manner. Accordingly, a technological defence industry framework needs to be developed- identifying existing gaps, which could then be filled with the cooperation of the private sector.
Ahsan Munir
The writer is a freelance columnist.