TAXILA: President Dr Arif Alvi on Thursday said that the country’s immense growth potential in the defence sector can be fully realised by improving the capacity of human resources and adopting emerging and critical technologies powered by artificial intelligence, virtual reality and robotics.

He expressed these views during his visit to Pakistan Ordnance Factories (POF), Wah.

He stressed the need for focusing on research and development (R&D), bringing innovation and modernisation and adopting best practices in defense production to further improve efficiency and productivity.

Referring to the country’s high quality defence products, Dr Alvi underlined the need for employing modern marketing techniques and improving the efficiency of supply chain to consolidate “our position in existing markets and increasing our footprint in new and non-traditional markets by promoting Pakistani defense products which are of high quality, effective and dependable in any given situation, and were at the same time very cost-effective”.

On this occasion, Dr Alvi lauded the role of POF for its endvaour toward self-sufficiency and in meeting the growing demand of defense sector and other civilian security agencies, as well as capturing foreign markets by improving its efficiency, adopting quality financial management practices and digitalising its processes to transform POF into a self-sustainable and progressive defense industrial complex.

During his visit, Dr Alvi also visited different parts of POF where he was given an overview of the production and manufacturing processes.

He also took keen interest in different defense products produced by POF, which were on display.

The president was also briefed on the role of POF in fulfilling the ammunition requirements of Pakistan’s Armed Forces as well as other Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) and steps taken by it to develop academia-industry linkages.

Published in Dawn, December 2nd, 2022