The situation in Ukraine has led to the postponement of the prestigious defence exhibition DefExpo-2022,  to be held from March 10-14 in Gandhinagar, Gujarat.  While the Ministry of Defence here did not elaborate, it said the event was postponed as participants are experiencing problems related to logistics.  The new dates of the exhibition, held every two years, will be announced in due course.

Announcing this here on Friday, the defence ministry said as on February 22 as many as 973 exhibitors, including 121 foreign exhibitors from 63 countries, had registered for Asia's largest exhibition on land, naval and homeland security systems.    Prime Minister Narendra Modi was likely to address the exhibition as per the earlier schedule. 

The exhibition was, in fact, extended by a day earlier to enable wider participation in view of a decline in Covid-19 cases in India.

“Due to logistics problems being experienced by participants, the DefExpo-2022 proposed to be held in Gandhinagar, Gujarat from March 10 till14th is postponed,” the ministry said.  This year's DefExpo would be the 12th edition of the prestigious biennial defence exhibition.

DefExpo began in 1996 and this year it was being organised at over an area of one lakh square metres. The US pavilion had booked the largest space among the nations, while Adani and the Tata Group were to have the largest stalls among the Indian participants.

Over 50 defence ministers or heads of armed forces from across the world were expected to attend the event.  Also, the second India-Africa Defence Dialogue was to be held alongside the DefExpo, with 52 countries invited.

Many defence manufacturing companies from Europe besides Russia and Ukraine were slated to participate in the DefExpo.  Given the current situation there and closure of the Ukrainian airspace was one of the reasons for postponement of the exhibition, sources said.