Seminar By DEPO

The Defence Export Promotion Organization (DEPO), an arm of the Ministry of Defence Production (MoDP) focused on promoting defence exports, organized a two-day seminar titled ‘Public-Private Partnership in Defence Production and Export: Challenges and Way Forward’ from December 2-3, 2015, at Marriott Hotel Islamabad. The seminar aimed to explore avenues of cooperation between public and private sectors in defence production and export, with a view to offering policy guidelines to the Government on defence production and export, emphasizing active participation from the private sector. The share of private sector investment in Pakistan's defence industry is considered marginal compared to other countries, highlighting the need to identify impediments or shortcomings in public-private partnerships within the defence industry. This would help boost defence exports, enhance research and development, and make Pakistan's defence products more competitive in the international market.

The seminar covered a wide range of themes related to public-private partnerships in defence production, including global and regional military outlooks, trends and challenges for Pakistan’s defence industry, prospects of the defence industry in national development, IT and indigenization, financial models to facilitate public-private partnerships, and the legal framework required to ensure stability and confidence for the private sector. The Turkish public-private partnership model in defence production, presented by Dr. Ismail Demir, Turkish Under Secretary for Defence Industry, served as a key example. The seminar featured intellectual contributions from nearly 50-70 eminent speakers from the public and private sectors, academia, and industry during three plenary sessions and five breakout/roundtable sessions. Participants included foreign diplomats in Pakistan, senior government and armed forces officials, academia, chambers of commerce and industry, and civil delegates.