Ormara can be considered for future commercial activities like other ports of the country, especially Karachi Port.
The Chief of Naval Staff and the Chief Advisor to the Federal Government on Maritime Affairs, Admiral Shahid Kareemullah told this to Business Recorder here on Friday after the conclusion of a three-day International Ports & Shipping Conference, IPSC-2004.
He said, "the Ormara naval base have the provision of commercial activities in its master plan, so new berth can be constructed in the proximity of naval base and administered like Karachi port, if the future demands of this sector increases."
Admiral Shahid Kareemullah said that with the construction of Gwadar deep seaport, the responsibilities of Pakistan Navy have been increased and we had to expand our fleet of frigates.
In this connection, Pakistan Navy is presently negotiating with China for acquiring four frigates of 3,000 tonnes. "The negotiations is in final stages," he added.
"We are maintaining 'bear minimum deterrence' and evaluating it with other countries, and that would not be compromised," he said, adding that "all three forces of the country have prepared 'force growth plan' and after its finalisation, its details could be shared with the media."
Earlier speaking at the conference, the Chief of Naval Staff said that globalisation and internationalism is here to stay and boundaries are changing their meaning.
The days of walls, barbed wires, iron curtains, and trenched armies are gone. Space has changed to cyber-space and is now operating in four dimensions - the fourth one being the dimension of information.
Enemies are becoming competitors and prefer to be called as peaceful co-exists, he added.
Admiral Shahid said the exchange of information and ideas, joint planning, knowledge of each other's limitations, and idiosyncrasies, all these are essential ingredients of progress today. Isolation, lack of interaction, and shut doors can only lead us to doom.
The Navy chief said navies are also for the protection of trade and commerce. "I want to reassure our business and trade community that sea lines are in safe hands," he emphatically said.
Shahid said there is an element of internationalism about the sea and everything is connected to it and ports and shipping are no exception.
No economy has ever survived in isolation and nor will it in future. If trade and commerce is to flourish then contact, interaction, talking, debating, and conferencing has to be made a way of life? He pointed out.
He said the world is indeed learning to deal as regions rather than country -the Middle East, Far East, South Asia, Caribbean, North America, Europe and Africa - this is what the world now talks about.
"Nations are comfortable to be referred to as Saarc states, Asean states, the Nafta and European Union members.
"We have to learn to exist and prosper first as a region and then integrate ourselves in the global village," he said adding that a region at war and conflict will surely be left behind and the world has a stake in our region, no one is interested in our problems and plights.
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