Bilal Khan (Quwa)
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The economic support can come from industrial capability, but it needs investment to work. That's basically the biggest reason why I recommend attaching offsets to our contracts moving forward, so that we get some money into these industries. If not, then hold-off on imports entirely, and divert that money to dual-use inputs.The three Pakistan Navy Milgems are J-class frigates. Fourth Ship will be even different. We are not buying the Milgem corvettes in configuration which are operational in Turkish Navy.
Yeah Air Force and Navy are slowly moving towards enhanced indigenization and development of domestically tailored weapon systems and support equipment, but our industrial and economic capability is very limited. We have barely managed to keep Jf17 project on track and are still struggling to evolve it into a project of our expectations. All because the economic support is limited. As long as the economic support is limited, all our initiatives of local defense production will end up in jeopardy.
This is a risky strategy because India is moving ahead, but I think of it this way:
Would you rather keep taking one step at a time and remain 2 steps behind India? Or would you take 2 steps back, and try leapfrogging 4-6+ steps and catch up to India? If we invest $500 m in developing ship grade steel at home, we'd save $1-2 bn in ForEx for future ships, and possibly export $1-2 bn in said steel.
It's a $2-4 bn gain, and we'd be able to put it towards more advanced systems (by investing in R&D, high-tech sectors, etc, i.e., help both the economy, generate ForEx and domestic revenue, and make it easier to buy arms locally).
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