The ministry of defence announced on Friday afternoon that Defence Expo 2022, scheduled to be held in Gandhinagar, has been postponed.
The ministry announced the event was postponed due to logistics problems experienced by participating nations. Popularly known as DefExpo, the biannual event has been billed as the largest exhibition of defence and security hardware and solutions in Asia. DefExpo 2022 was scheduled to take place in Gandhinagar from March 10 to 14. The ministry said new dates would be announced in “due course”.
In mid-February, the ministry of defence said 930 companies had registered for DefExpo and the number was expected to cross 1,000. Major international vendors such as Boeing, European missile giant MBDA and France's Naval Group had announced they would be participating in DefExpo.
While the MoD did not specify the nature of the logistics problems, the postponement comes amid the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. The conflict in Ukraine had affected flight schedules due to western sanctions on Russia and also due to commitments to ferry weapons to Ukraine. There had also been concern about the level of Russian participation at DefExpo. Earlier this week, The New Indian Express reported Russia would not be participating in the event on account of the conflict.
