At Defense Confab Start, UAE Reveals Over $1 Billion in Arms Deals
The United Arab Emirates announced at the opening of a weapons show in Abu Dhabi that it has signed $1.36 billion in local and foreign arms deals.
The biennial International Defense Exhibition and Conference, which opened on Sunday, is the largest defense exhibition and conference in the Middle East and includes about 70,000 attendees and 900 exhibitors.
The UAE signed additional contracts on Monday, including with SAAB, for G6000 early warning planes and with Raytheon for Patriot missiles, Reuters reported.
The United States did not have a national pavilion at the conference this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, though some large American companies were present at the event. Al Jazeera reported. Israeli arms companies did not attend the event, which they had planned to do for the first time this year in the wake of the UAE-Israel normalization, due to Israeli restrictions on travel because of the coronavirus.
