Pakistan is pressing ahead with Chinese built Hangor-class submarines even as families face higher food bills and steep electricity tariffs. The trade off is plain scarce public money and foreign exchange flow to warships while kitchens tighten their belts.
Food and fuel shocks sap purchasing power
Headline inflation has cooled from last year’s extremes, but the pressure where it matters food, fuel and medicines has not vanished. In July 2025, Pakistan’s CPI re accelerated to 4.1% year on year, with food and fuel key drivers, and prices jumped 2.9% month on month in a single print.
Power bills have also been volatile. Under IMF-linked reforms, Islamabad raised electricity tariffs in 2023 to tackle sector losses; partial relief arrived only in April 2025 with a tariff cut averaging PKR 7.41/unit still leaving households above pre hike levels.
Hangor spend diverts scarce FX and budget room
The Hangor programme stems from a 2015 decision to buy eight submarines from China, one of Beijing’s largest arms exports. Four are built in China and four assembled at Karachi Shipyard under “transfer of technology”. Recent launches in Wuhan show where much of the value addition and thus Pakistan’s foreign-exchange outflow actually lands Pakistan remains under an IMF Extended Fund Facility with fiscal targets and subsidy trims; even so, the government moved to raise defence spending 20% for FY 2025 to 26 while cutting overall expenditure. That choice narrows budget space for social protection precisely when households are stretched.
What Pakistan is buying and what it isn’t
Hangor boats are export derivatives of China’s Type-039B/C Yuan-class, marketed with Air Independent Propulsion for longer underwater endurance. But “endurance at sea” does not equate to resilience at home every dollar sent to Chinese yards is a dollar not funding wheat procurement, nutrition schemes or grid reliability
The opportunity cost shows up in kitchens
With fiscal room squeezed by debt service and IMF conditionality, prioritising big ticket imports means less money for immediate welfare. The cost is visible where it hurts grocery baskets that don’t stretch as far, and power bills that force cutbacks on essentials. Roti over boats should be the rule; instead, prestige platforms crowd out social safety nets.
A telling contrast from official Indian sources
Open source releases from the Government of India highlight a different emphasis: indigenisation. Official notes reference domestic submarine building under Project-75 (Kalvari class) and indigenous AIP work by DRDO keeping know how, jobs and lifecycle support at home. Whatever India’s own challenges, the policy intent is clear and publicly documented.
Policy test for Islamabad
If households are absorbing food and tariff shocks, expanding an import heavy submarine fleet is the wrong signal. A responsible sequence would:
1. ring-fence funds for wheat, primary healthcare and targeted nutrition;
2. stabilise power bills by investing in grid efficiency before prestige procurement; and
3. pause additional FX-intensive defence outlays until social indicators recover.
Families need wheat, not warships. Until Islamabad flips the order of priorities, every submarine launch will look like a photo-op financed by the dinner table.
Wheat Prices vs Warships: The Real Choice in Islamabad
