Pakistan’s plans to develop shipyard at Gwadar for the promotion of merchant shipbuilding to fulfill the growing national needs on a priority basis, sources said.

Ministry of Ports and Shipping informed the media that the development of Gwadar shipyard will enable Pakistan to compete with other regional countries.

The plan envisions launch of 2 drydocks to handle up to 600,000 dead weight tonnages and the construction of ships of the very large crude carrier and ultra large crude carrier dimensions and mass. This will further encourage the building of barges, survey vessels, tugs, and tugs to support the activities of the port in Pakistan.

Chinese investors were also known to be interested in proposed Gwadar shipyard project told by the sources. Leaving Karachi Shipyard and Engineering Works Limited (KSEW) to meet the national defense needs is among one of the goals of the project.

So far, Pakistan was depending for merchant shipbuilding on KSEW in the meantime it is under an expansion of infrastructure and modernization to meet the increasing needs of the Pakistan Navy.

KSEW had a deal of $30 million with TTS Group of Norway for Syncrolift ship lift-and transfer system to rail the Syncrolift with 13 in-land workstations along with expanding “by three times” its capacity and ship turnover.

KSEW is the only and oldest since 1957 is catering for shipbuilding, ship repair, and general heavy engineering in Pakistan

Many cargo ships, oil tankers, tugboats and support vessels, landing crafts, naval vessels and submarines had been built by Karachi shipyard.