Post date: Jun 11, 2012 4:11:12 PM
VILLEPINTE, FRANCE (JUNE 11, 2012) (REUTERS) - The Eurosatory Arms Fair opened its doors at an exhibition centre just outside Paris on Monday (June 11) where talk was of new technologies, new markets and the cooling effect of the economic crisis on the weapons industry.
The global arms trade suffers from the downturn in state spending in the West, say experts at an international arms fair, turning instead to new technologies and new markets in Latin America and Asia.
The fair is one of the three largest in the world and focuses on land equipment including tanks and artillery. Machine guns and binoculars jostle for space beside the latest technology destined for use on the battlefield and in civilian environments as well.
Manufacturers have had to change tack in recent years as the economic crisis has squeezed many Western governments' budgets with defence being one of the victims. Procurement spending across the 21 largest markets in Europe fell by more than six percent between 2009 and 2011 according to industry trade magazine IHS Jane -- a fall in investment of 4 billion US dollars.
Reporter for the magazine Matthew Bell said that as a result defence companies are working elsewhere.
"The U.S. and U.K. and Europe are seeing either flattening or falling defence spending which means that defence companies are looking to other markets. So you've got Latin America, the Middle East, Asia in particular," he said.
IHS Jane estimates that defence spending in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Peru increased by 17 percent between 2009 and 2012, with robust growth also apparent in the Gulf states -- investment that is set to continue.
"The main trend is governments, countries, working out that in the West they can't spend as much money as they have been. So anything that's hugely sophisticated, for example fighter jets, the U.S. F52, that can't be afforded anymore. Governments are looking to be much more effective and get more bang for their buck," he added.
As a way of combating this belt tightening, investors are looking to make sure new technologies are adaptable and able to be used in a civil, as well as a military context.
Amongst such new technologies was an exoskeleton named Hercule, put on show at the fair for the first time. It has mechanical legs and arms and could enable its wearer to carry anything up to 40 kilos over difficult terrain.
Whilst the military application is clear, Serge Grygorowicz, CEO of the company RB3D who created Hercule, was keen to stress that there had been interest coming from the manufacturing sector as well.
Some new gadgets exhibited could also be put to use by the police, as Nicolas Vellas, creator of Millicam, explained.
"It's a camera which is designed to detect the presence of people behind walls. For example in a military context if someone had been taken hostage, you would be able to find out where the hostage-taker was. There was the case not very long ago of Mohamed Merah where this could have been used to locate the presence of the individual in the apartment where he was," he said. Merah was an al-Qaeda inspired gunman who killed seven people and was in turn shot by police in his flat after a 30-hour standoff.
Elsewhere, there are governments who are continuing to commit very large sums of money to technology to secure their borders. In Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E., money has already been invested in Argos II -- a day and night vision camera capable of seeing up to 20km.
The fair runs until June 15.