Coronavirus pandemic disrupts arms trade events around the world

A number of arms fair events around the world have been cancelled or postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic, including some of the world's largest arms fairs, causing huge disruption to the arms industry.

Cancelled events include:

• The Eurosatory arms fair has been cancelled. Eurosatory was due to take place in Paris in from 8-12th June.

• The Farnborough air show, a biennial event held in the UK has been cancelled,

• The DIMDEX (Doha International Maritime Defence Exhibition & Conference) 2020 event was due to take place in Doha, Qatar, in mid-March but was cancelled,

• The Chilean airforce cancelled the FIDAE international air and space fair, which was due to take place in March and April,

• The NDIA Special Operations/Low Intensity Conflict (SO/LIC) Symposium was to take place in Washington, DC, on 31 March-1 April, but was cancelled,

Postponed events include:

• The DPRTE – the Defence Procurement Research Technology & Exportability – event, due to take place in Cardiff, UK, in April 2020 has been postponed to September,

• The DSA exhibition, held in Kuala Lumpur was originally scheduled to take place in late April has been rescheduled for late August 2020,

• The ARMHITEC, an “international exhibition of arms and defence industries” planned for the end of March in Armenia has been postponed to October 2020,

• The Blue Line Expo, “Canada’s premier event for the law enforcement community” has been postponed until September 2020,

• The Enforce TAC, an “international trade fair for command, control and operational equipment used by security agencies” was originally due to take place in early March in Nuremburg, Germany, but has been postponed to the 1-2 September,

• The EURASIA airshow, held in Turkey, was originally due to take place in April but will now be held in late June,

• HuntEx, “an international consumer exhibition catering for hunters, sportshooters, game farm owners and game breeders” was due to take place in late April but has been postponed to an unconfirmed date.

However, some events continue to be organised. The Balt Military Expo, scheduled to take place in Poland in late June, announced that despite other trade events in Poland being cancelled they were continuing with preparations. CADSI, the Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries have said they will announce their plan on the CANSEC arms fair, due to take place in May, on 1st April.