Pakistan earned Rs 31bn through Defence exports this financial year, claims Zubaida Jalal
2 min readDUBAI: Federal Minister for Defence Production Zubaida Jalal on Sunday said that Pakistan had made at least Rs 31 billion from the export of defence-oriented products this financial year, a private TV channel reported.
The minister was talking on the sidelines of the Dubai Airshow 2019 officially, that kicked of on Sunday without Pakistan’s JF-17 Thunder at the Pakistan pavilion performing the airshow.
The airshow was opened by Vice-President and Prime Minister of UAE and Ruler of Dubai Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum and Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
Close to 1,288 exhibitors and more than 87,000 trade visitors are expected to visit the airshow over the next five days. More than 160 countries, including Pakistan, are participating in the mega-event.
Pakistan’s Super Mushshak training aircraft is also on display at the airshow, but unfortunately, the pride of Pakistan, JF-17 Thunder, is not present in this year’s airshow.
Many aviation enthusiasts, specially Pakistanis and Chinese, were a little dejected when they didn’t find the state of the art fighter aircraft JF-17 in this year’s show.
The fighter plane had been participating regularly in Dubai airshows for the past ten years. Not only in Dubai, but JF-17 Thunder had successfully been participating in various reputed air shows all over the world too.
Federal Minister for Defence Production Zubaida Jalal also visited Pakistan pavilion and met engineers of Super Mushshak at the site of the airshow on the first day.
She lauded the efforts of Pakistani engineers of developing state of the art aircrafts in Pakistann and said that Pakistan has received three times more foreign exchange this financial year by exporting defence products.
“More than $200 million (Rs31 billion) has been earned by defence production’s export and this amount would increase in coming years,” she informed on the sidelines of the airshow.