PAKISTAN REDUCED DEFENCE IMPORTS BY 90%

[WaLeEdK2]

What weaponry are we importing.

 

[X-2.]

Aircraft Manufacturing Factory at Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC). Photo credit: PAC.

Aug 1, 2016 Bilal Khan -
PAKISTAN REDUCED DEFENCE IMPORTS BY 90%
At a seminar organized by the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad (ISSI), Rana Tanveer Hussain, Pakistan’s Minister of Defence Production (and Minister of Science and Technology), said that Pakistan had reduced its defence imports by 90% over the past three years (Business Recorder).

Emphasizing the need to source domestically, Hussain told seminar participants that his ministry reduced the number of federally issued ‘no-objection certificates’ (NOC) for imported goods from 1000 to 100.

The minister also called for an increase in the domestic research and development budget – currently at 0.29% of Pakistan’s gross domestic product (GDP) to at least one percent of the country’s GDP by 2018.

Comment and Analysis

Domestic production of defence hardware offers a number of important advantages. First, it provides a country with the strategic benefit of reducing its dependence on foreign suppliers. In times of war, this can be critical, especially if a country – such as Pakistan – is susceptible to military sanctions. In fact, this was the primary objective behind Pakistan’s pursuit of self-reliance.

Second, this reduced overseas dependence enables a country to channel a higher proportion of its precious national funding into its domestic industries. Besides supporting the local economy, domestic defence production also provides cost-savings. For example, by sourcing locally, Pakistan does not need to spend in dollars, pounds or euros, but rather, the Pakistani rupee, and that too with lower labour and material costs. In tandem with reduced costs, defence spending can become a form of stimulus, i.e. the use of public money as a means to stimulate local economic activity.

However, it is important to note that there a number of major caveats in the federal minister’s statement. For example, over the past three years, Pakistan has not procured much in the way of next-generation or particularly advanced hardware. This will change in the next three years, especially as programs such as the Pakistan Air Force (PAF)’s JF-17 Block-III and the Pakistan Navy (PN)’s next-generation submarines take shape. New and advanced hardware, such as active electronically-scanned array (AESA) radars or air-independent propulsion (AIP) systems, are also the most expensive, and Pakistan is certain to import both.

One can only save so much from local licensed production and manufacturing of basic components, especially in the long-term. In order to accrue decisive savings, Pakistan must invest in its capacity to develop and manufacture advanced components domestically. One cannot defer this to off-the-shelf purchases and partnerships, for both are bound to the seller’s interests, which will not always be flexible.

For example, not every company will have an interest in parting with sensitive technology, and even if one is able to procure that technology, they will have only do so after spending a significant amount on it. Such purchases can only be justified on the basis of scale, i.e. the need to produce a large number of systems as a means to distribute the cost of acquiring the technology and facilities to produce them. This is much easier to do with an assault or battle rifle than it is with a complete fighter aircraft (i.e. airframe, engine, radar and avionics together).

Countries will not readily part with valuable expertise and sensitive technology, but Pakistan could try and secure softer gains in the form of general capacity building such as technology/engineering universities, research and development facilities (e.g. wind tunnels) and collaborating in fields such as radar and electronic warfare development. It will be several decades before such initiatives come to fruition in significant ways, but gains in each of these areas will enable Pakistan to continuously grow in its ability to produce complex systems.

Domestic production of missile radomes and dual-pulse rockets for air-to-air and surface-to-air missiles, transceiver modules for AESA radars and electronic warfare/countermeasures equipment, diesel engines for armoured vehicles, and advanced metallurgy and composites are the kinds of areas that will result in massive long-term costs savings and decline in overseas dependence. However, Pakistan will require a significant level of investment in its underlying science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) development in order to begin charting measurable gains in these fields.
Source: QUWA.org

Pak weapons export is in trillions of USD
Exporting to more then 50 countries including USA UK Germany on top ..

 

[@RV]

I seriously doubt the report, good if it's even 50% true.

Pak weapons export is in trillions of USD
Exporting to more then 50 countries including USA UK Germany on top ..

Good one man .

 

[IceCold]

Unless you are trying to remind us that we had better watch out.

Dont you think its the other way round. On topic there is hardly anything alarming about our defense industry considering its size and the meagre resources that we put into it.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Dont you think its the other way round. On topic there is hardly anything alarming about our defense industry considering its size and the meagre resources that we put into it.

That's true, if we get our act together, we can push the Chinese, the basic talent is there.

Please, please don't take this as jingoism - I hope you will accept that I do not do jingoism - but as a serious assessment. The things I've seen Indian engineers do on the Tejas, on the ALH, where Ashok Baweja was directly responsible for the resounding success of the programme, on the Arjuna, on simulator work, on absorbing the glass cockpit technology, and on the PSLV mission computer programming is truly class work. All of BEL, for instance, is a class shop. ISRO in general, apart from these occasional very peculiar fits of self-hatred that overtake it from time to time, is world class.

The trouble is we kill ourselves with our bureaucracy and our infighting. And there are pockets of darkness which need a neutron bomb.

What I like about the Pakistani programme, on the other hand, is that somebody is taking balanced decisions all the time. My assessment is that somebody has figured out (@MastanKhan will not agree, and I say this in fear, quaking and trembling in my boots, and soiling my dhoti) what can and cannot be paid for, and has taken some really great decisions. These decisions have led to your getting product out of the door; not necessarily the smooth and diamond-finish products that have come out of DRDO, but available product, with good enough architecture to add systems progressively, and advance through every block with something achieved over the previous block.

My serious assessment is that the Tejas can eat some of its competition for breakfast (no, I am not naming that competition, I have absolutely no intentions of getting my nethers singed and smelling like a barbecue); the Arjuna, all said and done, far outshines the competition, and both of them are too little too late and underpowered.

You are very, very lucky - or relatively better managed - and you have this whiff of practicality about whatever you do.

sahi kaha apny bilkul

Biradar, khule ghaon mein namak mat chhirkhao.

 

[IceCold]

That's true, if we get our act together, we can push the Chinese, the basic talent is there.

Please, please don't take this as jingoism - I hope you will accept that I do not do jingoism - but as a serious assessment. The things I've seen Indian engineers do on the Tejas, on the ALH, where Ashok Baweja was directly responsible for the resounding success of the programme, on the Arjuna, on simulator work, on absorbing the glass cockpit technology, and on the PSLV mission computer programming is truly class work. All of BEL, for instance, is a class shop. ISRO in general, apart from these occasional very peculiar fits of self-hatred that overtake it from time to time, is world class.

The trouble is we kill ourselves with our bureaucracy and our infighting. And there are pockets of darkness which need a neutron bomb.

What I like about the Pakistani programme, on the other hand, is that somebody is taking balanced decisions all the time. My assessment is that somebody has figured out (@MastanKhan will not agree, and I say this in fear, quaking and trembling in my boots, and soiling my dhoti) what can and cannot be paid for, and has taken some really great decisions. These decisions have led to your getting product out of the door; not necessarily the smooth and diamond-finish products that have come out of DRDO, but available product, with good enough architecture to add systems progressively, and advance through every block with something achieved over the previous block.

My serious assessment is that the Tejas can eat some of its competition for breakfast (no, I am not naming that competition, I have absolutely no intentions of getting my nethers singed and smelling like a barbecue); the Arjuna, all said and done, far outshines the competition, and both of them are too little too late and underpowered.

You are very, very lucky - or relatively better managed - and you have this whiff of practicality about whatever you do.

No matter who you quote sir its always a treat reading your post specially the wit in it. I believe part of our relatively better management (and this has nothing to do with luck) is because of the limited resources we can put and we can afford to put. Its like not having the luxury to re invent the wheel and work what you can get.

 

[Joe Shearer]

No matter who you quote sir its always a treat reading your post specially the wit in it. I believe part of our relatively better management (and this has nothing to do with luck) is because of the limited resources we can put and we can afford to put. Its like not having the luxury to re invent the wheel and work what you can get.

<sigh!>

Sa'adi was once in Isfahan, and met a rich merchant, who, on learning the identity of his guest, entertained him at a rich banquet of staggering quality and unlimited portions. At the end, he was thunderstruck to hear his guest sigh, and exclaim very, very softly, to himself, in fact,"Ah! for the feasts of Shiraz!" Unnerved though he was, he lost no time in inviting the poet for the next evening as well.

The same thing happened.

This time, the merchant put in all his effort, and spared nothing for the preparation of the evening repast. For the third time, he overheard this exclamation, and, disheartened, let the matter go.

Months later, the merchant found himself in Shiraz, and thought of Sa'adi. He invited himself to the poet's house and was promptly invited to dinner. He sat down to it with great expectation, but was confounded to find it a most ordinary meal, peasant fare, in fact.

"Tell me, dear Sir," asked the merchant at the end of the repast, "When I entertained you in Isfahan, I put some of the best food in front of you. But - pardon my saying so - I overheard you sighing for the feasts of Shiraz. If this is a sample, and I appreciate your hospitality, what did I do wrong when I entertained you?"

The poet smiled sadly and said,"You see, Sir, that level of hospitality was possible only on an occasion. It is not possible to eat like that every day. But the way we eat in Shiraz, why, we can eat like that every day. That is why I sighed for the feasts of Shiraz."

 

[Thomas M]

You CANNOT do this. Your defence industry could be growing at an encouraging pace, or at an exhilarating pace, or at a satisfactory pace. Not an alarming pace. Unless you are trying to remind us that we had better watch out.

On a sober note, I have always felt that we in India need to root ourselves in technology even more strongly, and this is a wake-up call to our technical establishment.

Don't worry, it is not because they are completely self-sufficient, rather Pakistan know the fact that they can't afford to buy state of the art foreign equipment's because they need a lot of money for that. Well if they had the money to by F-16 they wouldn't have bought them already. USA was ready to sell F-16 at market rate to Pakistan, the congressmen were just against the subsidy you know.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Don't worry, it is not because they are completely self-sufficient, rather Pakistan know the fact that they can't afford to buy state of the art foreign equipment's because they need a lot of money for that. Well if they had the money to by F-16 they wouldn't have bought them already. USA was ready to sell F-16 at market rate to Pakistan, the congressmen were just against the subsidy you know.

I think it's a balancing act. They have tried to get the best they could for what they had.

We should have picked up the Mirages, for instance. Blunder!

 

[war&peace]

This is great news. This highlights that a lot is happening behind the scenes that does not make into the news and that's also positive since though the common man (read pdfians) may be deprived of some moments of cheering and chest thumping, it provides the much element of surprise.
A lot of military imports are consumable articles like ammo and other supplies so this means Pakistan has become self sufficient in this particular department. Only the advanced armament and weapons are being imported but those will also be produced locally through ToT and JVs. It is a good news though I want to know more details that what are the main reasons, whether it is local production or budgetary constraints?

 

[Thomas M]

I think it's a balancing act. They have tried to get the best they could for what they had.

We should have picked up the Mirages, for instance. Blunder!

We had never thought seriously about self-reliance until the recent past I guess. Else some of our projects wont have got delayed by decades, if the government was serious in make in India in the 90's e could have achieved complete self-reliance at least by 2010. ISRO is the best example. Our government had invested a lot back in 70-80's and the organization is now one of the best and at par with NASA.

Now that we are slowly having R&D for almost all field, I think we can be completely self-reliant is a decade or two. Currently with god's grace we don't have any issue with funds.

But really appreciate Pakistan for their efforts for self-reliance with limited funds. Hope they can replicate this to each and every field, not just defense.

 

[The Eagle]

A self-reliance for growth is needed and it is getting better day by day.

These decisions are must while looking at change in diplomacy and geo-politics. A good start will definitely take us to the point of a total self reliance indeed. The recent developments of our requirements and strings attached to the every item by providers, have forced us to take necessary steps in this sector. However, journey wouldn't be short and that easy but at-least by moving in right direction with dedication will help achieve goals that we set today.

 

[sady]

I highly doubt 90 % drop is of any significance. It means we are slow in getting modern arms for our Armed forces. However what I like in the statement is a flicker of good sense prevailing about setting up a good base of technology first rather than aspiring to create AESA out of thin air. We require good metallurgy,polymers/materials research and advanced electronics to be able to have genuine domestic defence production. I think we need to gain knowledge from South Africa and other countries known for good military industry. Send students to the universities and institutes that are state of art research facilities in such countries and they should collabrate with institutes like NESCOM etc to create semi corporate entities governed by a Regulator body for sensitive technologies to cater for both civilian and military needs in a lose conglomerate.

The R&D financing however is our weakest link. We need reliable funding and probably fewer metros/bypasses/corruption can help in this regard.

 

[hawksway4]

its mainly due to JF17 and Al Khalid Thanks ! But now that we have done whatever small was possible to cook at home. Lets go for a tech dinner where we get big and then dissect it at home and work on it too.

 

[salarsikander]

Pak weapons export is in trillions of USD

LOL, Trillion !!!! Eve USa and russia combine dont export that much