Display Centre At Defence Export Promotion Organization (DEPO)

Defence Export Promotion Organization (DEPO) was established to facilitate customer inquiries and coordinate export of high quality defence products and services. Demand of the Pakistan Armed Forces is met by a large network of services, established in the country by public and private manufacturing and Research and Development (R&D) establishments, some of which have been meeting the needs of half a million strong Armed Forces, since over 50 years. During the last two years, Pakistan has diversified its traditional and non-traditional exportable products and has started to explore new markets to expand its customer base.

To optimize the potential of public and private sectors in the defence export and to proudly showcase Pakistani indigenous defence capability and military prowess to all the foreign military delegations visiting Pakistan, DEPO instituted a state of the art Display Centre at Defence Complex Islamabad (DCI), in which defence related products manufactured by public and private sectors of Pakistan are being showcased under one roof. The notable products / information displayed, are from HIT, POF, PAC, KS&EW, GIDS, NRTC, training packages offered by three services, PMTF, PSM, IOP, MVRDE, ARDE, Strategic Export Control Div, PAF Project Vision, Military College of Signal, National System, Metasco Intl, Panaforce, Fast Cable, Afridi Arms, CARE, SARG, Daud Son, East West Infiniti, Askari Shoes (AWT), Pak Business Aviation, Soft Innovative System, Akhtar Industries and Badar Expo Solutions, the Event Manager of IDEAS 2016. Private sector has come a big way in establishing the stalls at DEPO.

Rana Tanveer Hussain, Federal Minister for Defence Production inaugurated the Display Centre. While addressing on the occasion, the Minister said that in the beginning Pakistan’s Armed Forces were mostly dependent on defence equipment of foreign origin. Now, due to spirit of self reliance and as a result of hard work of our scientists and engineers, we have achieved the capability to completely overhaul, repair and modernize the military hardware in Pakistan. This is a reflection of the indigenous capability of our defence industries. He further said that both public and private sectors of Pakistan have developed a tremendous capacity to manufacture small and heavy weaponry.

The inauguration ceremony was attended by foreign Ambassadors / High Commissioners and Defence Attachés / Advisors in Pakistan along with Senior Armed Forces Officers, Govt. / Civil delegates, Chambers of Commerce, Media and representatives from participating companies. 

Honorable Minister and guests appreciated the efforts of DEPO team in accomplishing Defence Export Promotion Organization (DEPO), an arm of Ministry of Defence Production (MoDP) for promoting defence exports, organized a two days Seminar on ‘Public - Private Partnership in Defence Production and Export: Challenges and Way Forward’ from 2-3 December 2015 at Marriott Hotel Islamabad.

The aim of this seminar was to explore avenues of cooperation between public and private sectors in defence production and export, with the view to offer policy guidelines to the Government for the domain of defence production and export, with special emphasis on active participation of the private sector. The share of private sector investment in the defence industry of Pakistan is considered marginal as compared to other countries of the world. Hence, there is a need to identify impediments or shortcomings in the pursuit of public-private partnership in the defence industry with a view to boost defence exports, give a fillip to research and development, and make our products more competitive in the international market.

The seminar focused on a wide range of themes relevant to public - private partnership in defence production like global / regional military outlook, trends and challenges for Pakistan’s defence industry, prospects of defence industry in national development including public-private partnership, IT and indigenization, financial models to facilitate public-private partnership and last but not least a legal framework to ensure stability and confidence of private sector. Similarly Turkish public-private partnership model in defence production and enhancing defence exports, presented by Dr. Ismail Demir, Turkish Under Secretary for Defence Industry. In the seminar, almost 50-70 eminent speakers from public and private sectors, academia and industry gave their intellectual input during three plenary sessions and five breakout / roundtable sessions on 2 and 3 December respectively. The participants were foreign diplomats in Pakistan, senior government and armed forces officials, academia, chambers of commerce and industry and civil delegates.