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Largest Arms Fair Ends in Emirates with Big Deal Inked
The fifth International Defense Exhibition and Conference, or IDEX 2001, closed on Thursday with the United Arab Emirates making the biggest deal on buying four maritime surveillance planes.
The contract, signed between the UAE air force with the giant European Aeronautical, Defense and Space company, is worth 140 million U.S. dollars, the official WAM news agency reported.
A total of 860 defense manufacturers from 42 countries took part in the largest arms show in the Middle East region, whereas 600 companies from 20 countries were drawn to the previous fair in 1999.
The fair, also one of the largest defense show in the world, covered 14,000 square meters of indoor space and 12,000 square meters of outdoor area, 25 percent larger than that of the last one.
As traditional leading exhibitors, the U.S., Britain, France, Russia and Germany displayed their state-of-the-art defense technology and products at the five-day show.
The largest indoor participants were the U.S., Germany and France, while Switzerland and France occupied the largest outdoor areas. Britain had the largest presence in terms of companies.
Only three Arab countries -- Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the UAE participated in the exhibition, with the UAE's Al Masoud Group as the largest Arab exhibitor and Jordan's King Abdullah Design and Development Bureau as the largest Arab outdoor exhibitor.
Brazil, Ireland, Slovenia and Kazakhstan made their debut at the show.
During the show, marine units gave live demonstrations in the artificial canal adjacent to the main show site, which also incorporated a 100,000-square-meter area for mobility demonstrations by wheeled and tracked vehicles.
At the same time, the main vessel show was staged at a dedicated naval berthing area at Mina Zayed.
On the sidelines of exhibition, the Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research and the Jane's Information Group organized, for the first time, "the Gulf Defense Conference," focusing on weapons of mass destruction, potential threats to the member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council and other topics concerned.
The UAE holds the defense show every two years since 1993, where Arab countries come to purchase advanced weaponry to fend off their imaginary enemies, thus enabling Western arms manufacturers to sell their weapons to the lucrative market.
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