Good ideas

IDEAS 2016 exhibition has brought chaos to the already appalling traffic problems that Karachi experiences daily

The IDEAS 2016 four-day defence exhibition has brought chaos to the already appalling traffic problems that Karachi experiences daily, but the other side of the coin is that once again Pakistan is able to showcase an area of production that is vibrant, expanding and profitable. The PM and the outgoing army chief General Raheel Sharif inaugurated the exhibition on the morning of Tuesday 22^nd November. The exhibition has drawn delegates from around the world and it is not just promoting local wares. Pakistan has a significant export market in this sector, and the new generation of drones developed locally exemplifies this. It has a 15-hour loiter time and has a wide civilian as well as military application.

From small beginnings the IDEAS event has grown into an arms and non-military hardware exhibition of regional as well as an expanding global importance. There are 216 foreign exhibitors at this years’ event, comprising 90 delegations from 34 countries. They do not come to Pakistan as a favour to the government they come to display and sell their goods. They come with heavyweight members — defence ministers, chiefs of army staffs, secretary level bureaucrats and other senior figures — who are also not here for the good of their health but to network among themselves and exchange ideas and grease the wheels of international trade and diplomacy.

It is a mistake to view such events as merely an arms bazaar. That it undeniably is, but it is also an opportunity for high-level informal diplomacy to be conducted in an atmosphere more relaxed and open than the ‘usual channels.’ It is also an opportunity to market Brand Pakistan in the broadest sense. Pakistan makes millions in foreign-exchange sales of goods that would not sell internationally were they not of a quality to satisfy the buyers and end-users. The IDEAS event should be both benchmark and template and grow year on year. Success stories are rare enough, and we should capitalise on those that come our way — bigger and better next year, please.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 23^rd, 2016.

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