KUALA LUMPUR: Yang di-Pertuan Agong Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri'ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah graced the Defence Services Asia (DSA) 2022 on its opening day.
His majesty, accompanied by Defence Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein, Home Minister Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainudin and other dignitaries, visited several local and international defence industry booths at the Malaysia International Trade and Exhibition Centre (MITEC) in Dutamas.
The King arrived at MITEC at 2.15pm and was briefed on DSA 2022 and the simultaneous National Security Conference Asia (NATSEC) 2022, before visiting some of the major exhibition booths that included the Turkish pavilion and that of local firms like Sapura, Mindmatic and Gading Marine Industry.
Earlier, Hishammuddin and Hamzah opened the exhibition and conference, in the presence of local and foreign top brass.
DSA and NATSEC are biennial events. They were last held in 2018, with the ones in 2020 cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
DSA is the country's biggest international event and ends on Thursday, just a day ahead of Malaysia entering the transition to the Covid-19 endemic phase on Friday.
With the theme "Advancing into a New Era of Defence and Security", the concurrently-held exhibition and conference are jointly hosted, supported and co-organised by the Defence Ministry, Home Ministry and the armed forces.
The event had attracted over 25,000 visitors from more than 50 countries and regions participating; including some 4,800 international visitors comprising experts, exhibitors, delegates, government officials, captains of industries and foreign journalists.
Malaysia is also playing host to over 350 foreign VVIP delegates from 45 countries and regions made up of defence ministers, home ministers, armed forces chiefs and inspector-generals of police, service chiefs of the army, navy and air force along with directors-general and heads of cyber-security agencies.
Some 1,170 companies from 54 countries are participating over the four days to showcase the most sophisticated hardware and electronics of land, air and sea; along with cutting-edge technology in the areas of cyber domain, border protection, citizen identification, artificial intelligence, battlefield healthcare, training and simulation systems, police and homeland security peripherals, as well as protection systems of critical assets.
There are 20 Country Group Pavilions by Malaysia, Austria, Azerbaijan, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Indonesia, India, Italy, Norway, Pakistan, Slovakia, Spain, South Korea, Switzerland, China, the Netherlands, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States.
A key feature of the four-day event is the 2022 Putrajaya Forum on Tuesday, that is organised by the Malaysian Institute of Defence and Security (MiDAS) and the Defence Ministry.
The forum will focus on 'Shared Regional Responsibility' over two sessions, titled 'Adapting to Regional Security Evolution' and 'Security Without Borders', respectively.
Also, the defence ministers of Indonesia and the Philippines attended physically at the Trilateral Cooperative Arrangement (TCA) Ministerial Meeting hosted by Malaysia, on the side-lines.