Quality products a proof of success for UAE defence industry, says Obaid al Ketbi

ABU DHABI, Feb 26th, 2015 (WAM) -- Maj-Gen. Obaid Al Ketbi, Chairman of the Supreme organising committee of IDEX, has said that interest of the international buyers in the defence products of the local companies, speaks volumes of their quality and is also a proof of the success of the military industry of the UAE. Answering queries from the media on Wednesday at the IDEX official briefing, the spokesman said, "There are many International companies that have contacted UAE national companies especially those exhibiting their own defence products in the IDEX. They are considered as state-of-the-art and therefore there are many international companies that contacted our own National companies and they have started negotiations and communicating with them. This shows the success of the military industry of the UAE." On military cooperation with Ukraine the spokesman said, "There is sort of cooperation between the two countries, I think we have a lot of interest in their (Ukraine) products and they do have also some interest in some of the things that we produce here in UAE." He further explained, "There are opportunities with so many countries and hopefully that we see more progress in the future in this field." Answering another question, the spokesman said, "As for IDEX 2013, we announce Dh 14 billion worth of deals, and for this year we are talking about over Dh 15.9 billion worth of deals. We hope that we will add more figures and amount about the contracts. This increase in deals indicate that the quality of the products is highly progressing and there is a big role for specialise companies." About deals with the national companies the spokesman said, "Off course we have to know first how to select the equipment and the supplies for the armed forces, and we rely on the quality of the product and there are many stages of negotiations, so that we could finally approve any procurement of any arms or weapons, therefore for, the local UAE products are now competing at the international level, and we have been working with international standards and we are really proud of the products of our own national companies." He further stated," The local companies have started to compete with major players in this industry. I have been talking about the joint ventures and cooperation with international companies, and this is the secret of success in fact that we are making use of the experience of international companies, and companies from the friendly nations all our the world, and it’s not the UAE that concentrates on local product but there are also Arab and non-Arab countries who have the strong desire to enter into discussions and to provide everything for the local companies, even to export their own products." – Emirates News Agency, WAM – http://www.wam.ae/en/news/emirates-idex/1395277119416.html