IDEAS 2018: Summary Plus

On 27-30 November 2018, Pakistan held its biennial defence tradeshow, the 2018 International Defence Exhibition and Seminar (IDEAS) in Karachi, Pakistan. Quwa will release a series of articles from its coverage of the event, but this article will summarize most of what we learned at the event.

China, Turkey and Western Europe

It was clear that China and Turkey were Pakistan’s dominant defence partners. Not only did the suppliers from these countries maintain the largest exhibits at IDEAS, but their efforts were pervasive.

Most will be aware of the contracts Pakistan already signed with the likes of China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation (CSIC) and others, but most bids and ongoing contract negotiations involved suppliers from China or Turkey. For example, the Pakistan Navy (PN) is negotiating with Turkish Aerospace for the Anka-S medium-altitude long-endurance (MALE) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), ASFAT A.S. is submitting a bid for the PN’s submarine rescue vessel bid, the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) is proposing its L-15 for the Pakistan Air Force’s (PAF) lead-in-fighter-trainer (LIFT) program and so on.

However, while China and Turkey dominated the big-ticket space, Western European companies were in a strong position for subsystem contracts. The Italian electronics company Elettronica maintained a large exhibit showcasing its electronic warfare (EW) and electronic support measures (ESM) solutions. Some of these have even made it to the PN’s ATR-72 maritime patrol aircraft (MPA), while others are being pushed to the PAF for use on the JF-17 multi-role fighter. RAMSYS from Germany was also promoting the Rolling Airframe Missile (RAM) for use on the PN’s forthcoming MILGEM corvettes and existing warships.