Seminar kicks off on defence production

Will explore ways to boost public-private partnership

ISLAMABAD: A two-day seminar on “Public-Private Partnership in Defence Production, Export Challenges and Way Forward” aimed at exploring avenues of cooperation between public and private sectors began on Wednesday.

Defence Export Promotion Organisation (DEPO), an advisory organisation to the Ministry of Defence Production (MoDP) for promoting defence exports, organised the seminar.

It aims to give policy guidelines to the government for the domain of defence production and export, special emphasis being put on the private sector’s active participation.

Private sector’s share of investment in Pakistan’s defence industry is considered marginal compared to other countries.

Hence, the need to identify impediments in this regard in the defence industry with a view to boost defence exports, give a fillip to research and development, and make products more competitive in the international market.

The seminar focused on a range of themes relevant to public- private partnership in defence production. Examples include global or regional military outlook, trends and challenges for Pakistan’s defence industry in national development including public-private partnership and IT and indigenisation.

The Turkish public-private partnership model in defence production and enhancing exports was also presented by Dr Ismail Demir, Turkish Under Secretary for Defence Industry.

Several speakers from public and private sectors, academia and industry would give their intellectual input during three plenary and five breakout roundtable sessions. 

Published in The Express Tribune, December 3^rd,  2015.

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