KARACHI: The commissioning ceremony of Pakistan Navy ship Tabuk was held at the Black Sea Port of Constanta in Romania on Friday.

The contract for two corvettes for the Pakistan Navy was signed between the Ministry of Defence Production Pakistan and M/s Damen, Romania, earlier. The first ship, PNS Yarmook, was commissioned earlier this year, whereas, PNS Tabuk has joined the Pakistan Navy Fleet now.

PNS Tabuk is a multipurpose and highly adaptive platform of medium size and tonnage. The ship is equipped with state of the art electronic warfare, anti-ship and anti-air weapons/sensors along with modern self-protection and terminal defence systems. The ship is capable of performing a variety of maritime operations in a complex maritime environment and can embark multirole helicopter and an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) simultaneously.

According to information that reached here, while addressing the ceremony, the commanding officer of PNS Tabuk stressed upon the significance of this project and laid emphasis on the additional set of capabilities added to the Pakistan Navy sphere of operations with the induction of these potent platforms.

He further highlighted the impact of these platforms to ensure forward presence and perpetual readiness in the area of operations while being deployed on PN’s initiative of Regional Maritime Security Patrols in the Indian Ocean Region.

He also acknowledged the professional competence and shipbuilding acumen of Damen Shipyards and showed confidence in prospects of future cooperation in delivering cutting edge naval technologies to Pakistan Navy.

The impressive ceremony was also attended by chief naval overseer (Romania), the ship’s crew and senior management of Damen Shipyards, Gorinchem and Galati.

Published in Dawn, November 14th, 2020