Baykar Reportedly in Talks to Set Up Drone Production Plant in Pakistan Quwa Premium

On 05 December, Bloomberg reported that Turkey is in talks with Pakistan to establish an assembly plant for drones, citing several unnamed Turkish officials.

According to Bloomberg, the project would “see Turkey export stealth and long-endurance drones to be put together in Pakistan,” with talks ongoing since October, but have since “advanced significantly.”

The original equipment manufacturer (OEM) at the center of these talks is likely Baykar, which has not only exported small numbers of several unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) systems – notably the Bayraktar TB2 and Bayraktar Akıncı – to the Pakistan Air Force (PAF), but had also invested in the PAF’s in-house R&D centre, the National Aerospace Science & Technology Park (NASTP).

While the Baykar-NASTP partnership led to the development of the KaGeM V3 miniature air-launched cruise missile (ALCM) or loitering munition, Quwa was told that Baykar has since wrapped up its ties with NASTP and moved to establish Baykar Technologies Pakistan so as to directly engage with Air Headquarters (AHQ) and the wider Pakistani drone and loitering munitions market.

Thus, it appears that discussions to establish a drone assembly plant in Pakistan may be tied to Baykar’s domestic subsidiary. Moreover, these discussions indicate that the PAF – and potentially the Pakistan Army (PA) and/or Pakistan Navy (PN) – may be interested in ordering large numbers of Bayraktar drones, making local assembly feasible.