In the 60's and 70's Karachi was one of the largest shipping ports in all of Asia. This meant that Karachi used to be the prime destination for ships from around the world to come for repair and maintenance. However during the first tenure of Benazir Bhutto, mismanagement and nepotism caused industries like the Karachi Shipyard and the Karachi Port Trust to lose millions of dollars and it eventually was reduced to a shipbreaking facility. Karachi port itself is unable to accomodate super-tankers because its depth is limited to 10 meters compared to the 15-20meters required.

As of now Pakistan only has 6000 marine personnel, compared to 60000 of India and 300,000 of the phillipines. We only have 14 ships now compared to 745 of India. This means that Pakistan has to pay 300 million dollars every year to foreign merchant ships so that Pakistan can export its goods around the world.

With the Gwadar Port complete, does Pakistan intend to revive its shipping industry or will it continue to act in this foolish manner and fall further behind the rest of the world.

Sorry Double post

Pakistan's shipping industry until recently was limited to Ship-breaking, Today we can build submarines, Frigates, Tankers and fast attack craft, The only thing we havent really built yet is an aircraft carrier, Which we will do soon inshallah.

Pakistan intends to continue to act in this foolish manner and fall further behind the rest of the world. The new govt. will make sure of it.

Thats actually not true. We had huge maintenance and repair capabilities in the 60s and 70's. THat was until corruption caused Pakistan to fall behind. And we're not talking about military capabilities, we are talking about merchant marine ships and trade tankers for oil and gas transport.

The Shipping industry was destroyed by the so called "Qauid-e-awam" aka Zulfikar Ali Bhutto when he nationalized all private assets in that sector. Education system was destroyed by the same step.

The single worst policy decision Pakistan has ever seen, with the exception of Nawaz ceasing accounts of all Pakistanis

Mind you Bhutto has bigger medals on his chest, such as dividing the country into 2 and the lovely 77 elections etc. etc.

Whatever one may say about Z A Bhutto, He redeemed his sins by starting the nuclear weapons programme.

thats one thing i can never deny! And yes ... Kudos to him, Zia, BB, NS & Musharaf for not ###### with it.

You are wrong, Pakistan can make tanks but not cars in the class of Honda, they can make fighters but not Civilian airliners they can make navy ships but no LNG transport ships, you are missing the point Pakistan is too far behind to catch up with any of its neighbours.

thats why you should work on your best areas .... start selling mil-spec equipment, while you catch up everywhere and IDEAS defence exhibitions have not been at all bad for this purpose.

The problem is that we're not recovering the money we lose by not having civilian ship building capabilities by our sales in military equipment.

Folks, even the nuclear weapons programme shouldn't be attributed to Z.A. Bhutto. The Pakistani government of the late 1950s and 1960s raised the necessary R&D bureaus and think tanks to come up with the pilot plan. If anything Bhutto just began a project that could be accomplished by countries like Japan and Canada within a couple of years...and it took us like 20 years! Still during Bhutto's time our science & development took a sharp downfall...the Pakistani government was looking to produce American fighter jets in 1949...yes they thought we had the capacity back then, and now our ACM tells us that we can't do Gripen. Folks, had Z.A Bhutto not screwed up the country, Pakistan probably would have developed, produced and tested 6-7 nuclear devices by 1979...just in time for the Soviets, a little after Smiling Bhudda and would have gotten away with it FLAT.

Look, in any country where industries develop it's through the public sector who develop them for profits, not by tax payer money and the private sector.

We destroyed our public sector in the 70's when everyone else encouraged it. Within the public sector we lack the skills for ship building and the companies to do it.

We need to get foreign firms to get in and help Pakistani investors get involved in ship building, make cheap ships for our needs and to Market to poor nations.

That way we start making profits and start competing and get industries going. It will take time, but it's been destroyed for quite a long time.

For shipbuilding we need to produce a local market where foreign expertise could combine with private funds to meet domestic demands. For that to happen we first need to a domestic demand...there is potential in raising merchant firms that link landlocked countries like Afghanistan to Pakistani ports. Essentially we can have an open port policy where we do not charge the landlocked countries any tariffs or profit fees - i.e. allow them to get Pakistani rates in return for utilizing Pakistani ships, roads and personnel. These merchant firms can be state enterprises and private corporations, whoever wants to cough up the dough needed for ships, roads, railways and workers. For foreign designs - especially for use by state enterprises - the government can ask for those ships to be built in Pakistani yards in Gwadar, Port Qasim, etc.

Other domestic demands would include naval vessels, civilian use research vessels, etc. Encourage the private and public industries to engage in joint ventures with foreign shipbuilders to produce Pakistan specific designs. Though we should note that it is pointless to import industrialization for purely domestic needs...regardless of the domestic market, the technology, investment level and quality should be aimed for export...i.e. an export driven shipbuilding industry. Otherwise we will suffer the South American '80s where their products were not exported due to low quality. Policies similar to South Korea ought to be practised.

With regards to shipping, Pakistan needs to expand PNSC, its commercial shipping wing.

Pakistan needs more ships sailing under its flag and owned by Pakistanis so that we're not held hostage to foreign shipping firm's freight rates.

world power,

I do not question the size of Pakistan owning 6,000 Merchant Ships but the figure of 60,000 in respect of India is a Cruel Joke.

On 18 May 2007 the Number of Merchant Ships under the Indian Flag is as follows :

The Indian merchant fleet now consists of 797 of 8.70 million gross tonnage vessels and is ranked 20th in the world merchant fleet. However, the Indian fleet caters to about 13.7% of India's overseas trade. There is a need to increase the share of cargo carried on Indian flag vessels.

Peace

I think worldpower has made a mistake. I think he meant 6000 marine merchant personnel. We only have 14 ships owned by Pakistan. And Ajgir is right India has 750 ships whereas it has 60,000 marine personnel.

Ajgir and Zpak, sorry about that. Yes I did mean marine personnel. We only have 14 ships but back in the 60's we have 85 ships. I'll edit my intial post.