@Bilal. and others on this thread. Here is food for thought. From 2008-2015 Pakistan was on the FATF blacklist. During this period, we all know that very few Al-Khalid tanks were produced. Do you see a correlation here? Why would anyone want to buy Al-Khalid from us? When you can't export, the project makes less financial sense. In the end, you import VT-4s from China. Do you see how this works?
@Bilal Khan (Quwa)
Possibly, but I suspect the COIN/CT ops during that time took a lot of the armed forces' fiscal resources.
In 2016, it had seemed like we fell into a 'peace dividend' (funds freeing up) and, in turn, initiated the Haider MBT (i.e., VT4), attack helicopter (T129), additional Erieye AEW&C, new assault rifle, and naval programs.
The issue is why go for the VT4 when we already had the al-Khalid? Why not force HIT to once again manufacture the al-Khalid at full capacity (50 tanks per year)? Though modest, the al-Khalid still draws on the local economy in various ways (albeit mostly with labour and some parts), but we could've expanded that with targeted R&D for more sub-systems and components.
Yes, exporting helps build a direct ROI for the facility, but the macroeconomic ROI is the savings you accrue in hard-currency by reducing imports. Moreover, you create a stimulus for the domestic economy, incentivize R&D in the private sector (i.e., growth and investment), and other positive factors. For example, Pakistan may have been able to indigenize more of the al-Khalid's key inputs, and while it can't sell the whole tank, it might have an easier time exporting those inputs to other places.
Our planners didn't think about this because they aren't economists, they're fauj -- there's a limit to what they know, and we're seeing it. Overall, I'm fine with the Army owning HIT, POF, et. al, but they need to delegate the day-to-day management to actual professionals in engineering, finance, corporate management, etc. Moreover, they need to rope in economic and trade experts in their negotiations for foreign arms so that we can drill offsets, ToT, etc, at a more effective level.
I like Turkey's model of running TAI. Their equivalent to Fauji Foundation basically serves as the Board of Directors, but the entire corporate management aspect is run by professionals in those fields. Their equivalent to the MoDP -- i.e., the SSB -- is also run by an engineer / scientist, and exerts a lot of authority over the MS-SOEs to ensure synergy, horizontal IP sharing, etc.