Pakistan needs to give a big boost to its local defence industry. If our defence budget is 10+ billion USD we should be investing 80% of that into the local economy. This would stimulate the economy and provide millions of jobs. Infact if you do the math over a 10 year period Pakistan has the potential to make defence production the next CPEC when it comes to job creation and tech innovation we just need proper planning for the future and a strong political leadership .At best any foreign purchases should require that a large portion should be built in Pakistan using our own resources. If one looks at the PA then you see it has a requirement of
-500 Al-khalid-1- Used in plains of punjab or deserts of sindh, truly all purpose
-500 Light tanks (vt-4)- To be used in the northern regions and afghan border areas
-350 Heavy tanks (55+ tons-Altay?)- Heavy tank is best suited for the flat plains of punjab, where the most intense tank battles have always taken place.
With regards to the 1.2 billion usd deal with the turks for attack helis. We can use those funds to purchase a large amount of altays while the turks develop their own engines. HIT used to have a maximum capacity of 100 tanks per year but that has decreased due to failures of previous govt.
IK should focus on increasing HITS production rate to double and maximizing effeciencies. If possible privatize HIT via state credit to the largest domestic defence manufacturer you can find. I myself have seen amazing 4x4 & 8x8 IFVs made by Pakistani companies. They should be able to expand and take over failing state enterprises in the defence production field. The defence sector in all honestly should be privitized as much as possible as we have seen the technology gained by the defence sector spending throughout history ie internet, gps navigation, aeroplan engine technology, space rocket tech, nuclear tech etc all these technologies would have never came to light for civilian use if it were not for defence spending. When you are willing to spend billions then you should spend it on innovation esp when your life depends on it!
With the turks we can use COTS purchase with TOT of critical technologies to bolster future al-khalid variants. The chinese would be more than happy to also give us a production line for light tanks which can alter the geopolitical sceneario for us in gilgit-kashmir and also the wakkhan corridor with afghanistan. All technologies gained should be applied to domestic production.