International Defence Exhibition and Seminar

IDEAS International Defence Exhibition and Seminar
The official logo of IDEAS 2012
Location(s)	Karachi Expo Centre, Karachi, (since 2000)
Country	Pakistan
Established	2000
Attendance	24,000 at the last occurence
Website
ideaspakistan.gov.pk

The International Defence Exhibition and Seminar, more commonly referred to as IDEAS, is a defence sector event, held biennially, in Pakistan. Since its inception by President Pervez Musharraf in 2000, it has grown to include more than 30,000 delegates and 250 exhibitors from around the world.

The Pakistan government attaches a high level of importance to IDEAS; despite the fact that it attracts a large number of delegates, it is seen as a vehicle for facilitating their own indigenous arms trade. The level of political invovlement has been known to reach the highest echelons, with President Asif Ali Zardari personally inviting the Amir of Kuwait Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah to the event in 2008 in order to boost the chances of Paksitan's export of its indigenously developed al-Khalid main battle tanks.

The Defence Export Promotion Organisation or more simply DEPO, is the government agency responsible for the success and organisation of IDEAS. Typically they outsource some elements of production of the exhibition to private companies. In 2000 to 2006, Pegasus Consultancy Private Limited organised the event, but after the 2010 conference was forced to cancel because of the catastrophic floods which hit Pakistan late that year, the contract for production of the event was then awarded to Badar Expo Solutions. Assessing how the event had grown since its inaugural occurence in 2000, speaking at the 'soft launch' for IDEAS 2012, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani declared the exhibition a "mega event, that has become a global event in a short span of eleven years."

The event's prime mission has always been to showcase Pakistan's ability to export arms to foreign nations. The Campaign Against Arms Trade agree with this synopsis citing investigations from The Guardian newspaper that the only country Pakistan would not sell arms to would be Israel and noting that the IDEAS series of events was seemingly marketed to countries who find it difficult to buy elsewhere.

Occurring on September 16–19, 2002 at the Karachi Expo Centre, the seminar element of the conference had expanded by this point to include, over two days, the following themes: “Asian Security Scenario” and “The Asian Defence Market”. The principal officer in charge of the event was Major General Syed Ali Hamed, then Director General of DEPO, who expected to receive 1500 attendees. The event was launched again by President Pervez Musharraf.