KARACHI: The 8th biennial International Defence E­xhib­ition and Seminar (IDEAS 2014) is beginning at the Karachi Expo Centre on Dec 1, and 88 delegations from 47 countries are set to take part in it.

In a sign of growing ties between Islamabad and Moscow, Russia will make its first appearance in the four-day exhibition which is expected to attract senior officials from different countries, exhibitors and local and foreign visitors.

An important aspect of the IDEAS 2014 will be an international defence seminar to be held on Monday evening.

Several high-level meetings between foreign delegates, key government officials, and participants of the exhibition have been planned on the sidelines of the exhibition for forging alliances in defence production.

The Director Media, Defence Export Promotion Organisation (Depo), Ministry of Defence Production, Commodore Tahir Javed, briefed journalists about the exhibition on Saturday.

“We have received overwhelming response from exhibitors and delegations from across the globe as out of 88 delegations around 47 are headed either by defence ministers, joint chiefs, services chiefs or defence secretaries of their countries. In addition to this, 333 firms will exhibit their products of which 256 are foreign and 77 Pakistani,” Commodore Javed said.

Published in Dawn, November 30th , 2014