Daily Times

The launching ceremony of the most modern offshore patrol vessel, Pakistan Navy Ship HUNAIN (Desig), being built for Pakistan Navy was held at M/s DAMEN Shipyard Galati, Romania, on Wednesday.

Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral Muhammad Amjad Khan Niazi was the chief guest at the ceremony, a Pakistan Navy news release said.

Speaking on the occasion, the Naval Chief highlighted the importance of maritime security under the prevailing conventional and non-conventional maritime threats to energy and trade highways passing through the Indian Ocean Region.

In this context, he underscored that the Pakistan Navy had tremendous contribution in successfully providing a secure sea environment for maritime trade since 2004.

Admiral Niazi expressed his confidence that the induction of multipurpose and highly adaptive platforms, equipped with the latest weapons and sensors suite, would further strengthen combat capability of the Pakistan Navy fleet in safeguarding maritime frontiers while ensuring maritime security in the Indian Ocean region, especially in the Arabian Sea.

He also commended the exceptional professionalism and dedication of DAMEN Shipyard in putting steel into a warship in short span of time, while underscoring the trust and confidence of Pakistan Navy in M/s DAMEN.

“M/s DAMEN has earned this trust after induction and good performance of the first batch of OPVs i.e. PNS YARMOOK and PNS TABUK in the Pakistan Navy,” he added.

The launching ceremony was attended by high ranking officials from the Romanian Government and Navy, Pakistan Navy, M/s DAMEN and notables from the Pakistani community in Romania.