By Azam Tariq

Saudi Arabia’s accelerating military procurement and defence localisation drive are creating broader opportunities for Pakistan and Türkiye to turn their expanding defence relationship with Riyadh into concrete industrial partnerships, experts say.

The US State Department on September 17 approved a potential $24.3 billion sale to Saudi Arabia covering 48 F-35 fighter aircraft and 49 Pratt & Whitney F135 engines, alongside training, logistics and support equipment. The proposed transaction remains subject to congressional review and is not yet a completed sale.

The development comes as Riyadh pursues a broader shift from importing finished military systems towards building domestic industrial capacity. Saudi Arabia’s General Authority for Military Industries (GAMI) says localisation of military spending reached 24.89% by the end of 2024, against a Vision 2030 target of more than 50%.

Saudi Arabia’s 2026 budget allocates SAR240 billion to the military sector, while military-industry localisation remains one of its stated priorities.

The scale of the market is substantial. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimated Saudi military expenditure at $83.2 billion in 2025, making it the world’s eighth-largest military spender. Saudi Arabia also accounted for 6.8% of global imports of major arms during 2021-25.

Analysts say the more relevant opening for Pakistan and Türkiye lies in Riyadh’s wider effort to develop local suppliers, maintenance capacity and jointly produced technologies rather than in the F-35 programme itself.

Speaking to Wealth Pakistan, Syed Basim Raza, Assistant Manager of Research at the NUST Institute of Policy Studies, said Pakistan should view the opportunity as entry into an emerging Saudi defence-industrial ecosystem in which Türkiye is already an important partner, rather than trying to enter an established Saudi-Turkish supply chain.

He said Pakistan would need to identify specific areas where its existing industrial capabilities could complement Saudi requirements, including aerospace manufacturing and maintenance, armoured-vehicle production, ammunition, communications, unmanned systems and naval capabilities.
“The key distinction is between defence cooperation and defence industrial integration,” Raza said.

That distinction has gained importance since the first meeting of the Strategic Political and Defence Committee under the Makkah Agreement for Joint Defence on August 31. In its joint statement, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Türkiye committed themselves to robust defence-industry cooperation and joint technology development and production.

Raza said the F-35 proposal should not be interpreted as automatically creating industrial access for Pakistan because sensitive US technology and transfer controls would limit participation by third countries.

Instead, he said Pakistan should concentrate on the wider Saudi localisation programme, where its existing production base could be integrated into jointly agreed projects.

Pakistan and Türkiye already have a precedent for such cooperation. Under the MILGEM programme, two of four corvettes for the Pakistan Navy were assigned for construction at Karachi Shipyard and two in Türkiye, with the programme involving technology transfer and capability development.

Raza said translating the trilateral political framework into industrial activity would require stronger certification and quality standards, greater investment in indigenous research and intellectual property, and a broader role for specialised private suppliers.

Saudi policy already embeds localisation requirements in defence acquisition. GAMI’s Industrial Participation Policy applies industrial-participation requirements to qualifying supply contracts and allows minimum localisation requirements to be incorporated into procurement programmes.

Raza said future trilateral projects would also require clearly agreed rules on work-sharing, intellectual property, financing, export licensing, technology protection and third-country sales before programmes enter development.

Muneeb Muhammad, Research Associate at the Centre for Security, Strategy and Policy Research at the University of Lahore, told Wealth Pakistan that the F-35 development should be viewed cautiously from the perspective of Pakistan and Türkiye because the proposed sale is neither immediate nor a trilateral industrial programme.

He said any Pakistani relevance from the proposed US-Saudi F-35 sale would be indirect and longer-term, potentially including greater exposure through cooperation with Saudi forces operating increasingly advanced systems and interoperability standards.

The more immediate test for Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Türkiye will therefore be whether the Makkah framework can move from political commitment to bankable industrial projects.

For Pakistan, the opportunity will depend less on Riyadh’s purchase of a particular fighter aircraft and more on whether Pakistani and Turkish firms can meet the certification, technology, delivery and intellectual-property requirements needed to become recurring suppliers and joint-production partners in Saudi Arabia’s expanding defence-industrial base.

Credit: INP-WealthPk