INITIAL OPENING BEFORE THE INAUGURAL CEREMONY OF NATIONAL AEROSPACE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY PARK BY THE AIR CHIEF

Islamabad(Nasir abbas)05 August, 2023: During the initial opening before the inaugural ceremony of National Aerospace Science and Technology Park, Air Chief Marshal Zaheer Ahmed Baber Sidhu, Chief of the Air Staff, Pakistan Air Force while expressing his views said, “We live in a challenging time in the wake of evolving global and regional environment. This is an era of transition that has induced the need to induct niche and disruptive technologies, which has subsequently affected the traditional concept of national security and defence”. While appreciating the vision of national leadership, the Air Chief emphasized that in order to address the contemporary challenges, the national leadership of Pakistan has envisioned the establishment of Special Investment Facilitation Council so as to create desired linkages and provide opportunity to different platforms for bringing Foreign Direct Investment in Pakistan. He further highlighted that PAF has also planned to play it's role in the ongoing national building projects under the umbrella of SIFC, predominantly in the Aerospace and IT domains. Chief of the Air Staff declared NASTP as a major landmark which being a multi-layered project based on hybrid model would be covering the private sector and aerospace clusters across all major cities of Pakistan. Underscoring the project's distinctiveness, CAS further said, "The biggest hallmark of the NASTP project is it's Aviation Design and Innovation Center comprising of Techno Parks, IT clusters, Nurseries and Basic Incubation Centers making the project diversified and unprecedented in the history of Pakistan." He further added that National Aerospace Science and Technology Park has also focused on the much needed triple helix model in order to embed a culture of sustainability, since its core objectives include the building of local industry and creating an interface between the public sectors. Chief of the Air Staff highlighted that through the NASTP project, PAF is bringing all organic setups at one place including Nano Technology, Space, Cyber, Artificial Intelligence, Super Computing, Networking and Algorithms in order to facilitate entrepreneurship and technological skill development in the country. In his concluding remarks, Air Chief Marshal Zaheer Ahmed Baber Sidhu commended the efforts of all the stakeholders for the accomplishment of this mega project in record time of one year. He also lauded the efforts put in by all the team members involved in various sectors to make the project a great success.