Tawazun Economic Council's Abu Dhabi International Offset Conference concludes

The ADIOC is held under the patronage of His Highness General Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, and is organized every two years by the Tawazun Economic Council.

"The UAE is steadily establishing itself as a hub for world class strategic manufacturing products and services. ADIOC brings together leading minds in offsets, manufacturing, specialist education and research and development, to debate industry issues of the day, with a view to forging stronger partnerships and capability building," said Matar Al Romaithi, Chief Officer of the Industrial Development Unit at the Tawazun Economic Council.

Among the numerous conference sessions, delegates attended a presentation given by Mr Bilal Aktaº, Head of Industrialization Department, Undersecretariat for Defence Industries (SSM) at the Turkish Ministry of National Defence, on Turkey's successful offset policy, which is based around the dual aim of both developing the national defense industry in the country, and modernizing its Armed Forces. According to Mr Aktaº, Turkey is using a combination of industrial partnerships, acquisitions, research & development, incentives, and financial support to promote and boost its national defense industry.

The booming strategic manufacturing industry in the UAE is being driven by robust and long term partnerships between government and global and local private sector industrial leaders. A recent example is the creation of Tawazun Dynamics, which is a joint venture between Tawazun and the Dynamics division of Denel, owned by the Government of South Africa and South Africa's largest defense manufacturer. Tawazun Dynamics is focused on the production of eight different configurations of its flagship product, the Al Tariq System, which is a precision guided weapons system being designed, developed, manufactured and assembled in the UAE.

In another session, Karl Sanchack, Acting Director, Innovation from Lockheed Martin's Corporate Technology and Innovation unit, gave a presentation on how the company is using R&D to help drive economic transformations to knowledge-based economies. He highlighted cooperation efforts in Abu Dhabi (via the Masdar Institute) and in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology.

ADIOC strategically segues into next week's International Defense Exhibition & Conference (IDEX) being held at ADNEC at which over 60,000 delegates are expected to attend from the global defense industry.

ADIOC is sponsored by Mubadala Aerospace, Emirates Advanced Investment, Saab, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, Nexter Systems, AMMROC, Thales, and Fincantieri. It is supported by the Global Offset and Countertrade Association, ADS and the Defense Services Marketing Council.