The biennial International Defence Exhibition and Seminar (IDEAS) 2022 commenced at the Expo Center in Karachi on Tuesday after a gap of four years — a delay caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
IDEAS is a defence exhibition which brings together the defence industry’s players across the globe to showcase the latest technological innovations.
Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari inaugurated the 11th edition of the exhibition, which will continue till Friday.
The previous defence exhibition held at the same venue was in 2018. As is the tradition of the usually biannual event since the year 2000, IDEAS 2022 will showcase a number of splendid activities encompassing the world’s advanced defence technology demonstrations, international seminars, the IDEAS Karachi Show, networking, and business expansions through Business-to-Business and Business-to-Government engagements.
“Arms for Peace, theme of IDEAS’22, reflects Pakistan’s desire for peace & stability. Good to see that our defence sector is catering to demands of tech era,” he said.
Earlier, Dawn quoted Brigadier Naveed Azam Cheema as saying that it was a challenge to hold the mega defence show after the devastation caused due to the floods here but the exhibition also helps Pakistan’s economy. He thanked the GHQ and federal and provincial governments for supporting DEPO.
Brig Cheema said that IDEAS 2022 had surpassed all previous milestones in terms of space, booking, exhibitors and delegates both domestic and foreign.
“The Karachi Expo Centre has been booked to its full capacity with more than 500 exhibitors from Turkiye, China, North America, South America, Europe, Asia and the Far East out of which 60 per cent are international and 40pc local. Besides trade visitors, more than 285 high-level delegates from 64 countries are visiting the exhibition,” he had said.
Although Russia will not be attending IDEAS 2022 as an exhibitor this time, they will still have a presence in the form of a delegation. Meanwhile, there are new entrants from several European countries including Austria, Romania and Hungary.
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