Pakistan Air Show | Seamless Transition

Prasun K. Sengupta

The 11th International Defence Exhibition and Seminar (IDEAS), organised by Pakistan’s Defence Export Promotion Organization (DEPO), was held at the Karachi Expo Centre on November 15-18. Alongside local military and private-sector original equipment manufacturers (OEM), companies from Türkiye, China, Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia showcased their products at the expo. From Europe, three countries–Austria, Romania and Hungary–participated in the expo for the first time.

Clockwise from Right FFG PNS Taimur; CETC ground-based EW jammers; Al Khalid-1 MBT

Although OEMs from both the US and Russia participated, by far the largest foreign presence at IDEAS 2022 came from Türkiye and China, two of Pakistan’s biggest suppliers of military hardware. Some 28 leading defence manufacturers from Türkiye, ranging from aviation and naval sectors to firms specialising in military electronics, AI and firearms participated in the expo. Strangely, the expo was inaugurated by Pakistan’s foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, and not by defence minister Khwaja Asif.

Army Developments

On March 22, 2020, when the Sindh provincial government imposed a Covid induced 14-day lockdown throughout the province, the Pakistan Army’s (PA) Rawalpindi-based General Headquarters (GHQ) was unperturbed, since it was expecting the lockdown to end by April 2.

But matters came to a head on April 8, 2020, when Sindh chief minister Syed Murad Ali Shah decided to tighten the lockdown regime and extend its duration till the first week of May in the province to prevent local transmission of the Covid-19 virus. A pensive PA now, through its ‘selected’ federal government in Islamabad, began tightening the screws so that by the end of the first week of May, a ‘relaxed’ lockdown could prevail in and around Karachi Port Trust. And why so? Because the first tranche of 24 VT-4/MBT-3000 ‘Haider’ main battle tanks (MBT) was due to arrive at Karachi by sea by May 10 from Guangzhou, southern China, and required unloading.

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Developed by the state-owned China North Industries Group Corp (NORINCO) and series-produced by the Inner Mongolia First Machinery