By Muhammad Afiq Mohd Asri
KUALA LUMPUR, March 26 (NNN-Bernama) — Turkey once again makes its presence felt by taking up the largest pavilion at the Defence Services Asia (DSA) 2022 and National Security (NATSEC) Asia 2022 exhibitions, to showcase their defence assets at the biennial event that will kick off on Monday.
A check by Bernama found the Turkish pavilion is taking almost half of the exhibition space provided, alongside the Malaysia pavilion and 18 others representing countries, including the United States, India, Germany, Poland, Switzerland, France, Spain, Thailand and Austria.
DSA executive director Nadzeem Abdul Rahman said the Turkish delegation would be represented by 60 companies from the country involving various products.
He said among the participating companies from Turkey were the Saha Istanbul Defence & Aerospace Cluster, Turkish Defence and Aerospace Industry Exporters’ Association and SSB Presidency of Defence Industries.
“Companies from Turkey are said to be looking forward to opportunities to export their products to Malaysia, and to collaborate.
“One of the local companies that work with Turkey is DefTech and the company’s products involve a lot of armaments, high-tech radar systems, aerospace, armoured vehicles and others,” he told Bernama recently.
Turkey was previously reported to be among the countries interested in obtaining an open tender for the procurement of Malaysia’s dual-function light combat aircraft and advanced training (FLIT-LCA), by offering cooperation with Malaysia to produce Hurjet fighter jets.
Senior Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein was reported to have said that the tender was opened to replace the Hawk 108/208 aircraft belonging to the Royal Malaysian Air Force and the international open tender for the procurement had closed on Oct 6 last year.
Commenting further on the event which was last held in 2018, Nadzeem said that in line with the COVID-19 situation, it will be equipped with a virtual platform as a value-added component to help participants access content before, during and after the exhibition.
According to him, this year’s event will be attended by more than 1,000 exhibitors from 60 countries.
DSA 2022 and NATSEC Asia 2022 exhibitions which will take place from March 28 to 30, will be held at the Malaysia International Trade and Exhibition Centre (MITEC), here.
The exhibitions are only open to high-level delegations, government employees, professionals and executives in the defence and security industry, as well as police and enforcement agencies.
— NNN-BERNAMA