The annual Asia Security Conference, a forum for discussion, brought together some of the world's main arms-makers with military chiefs nervously eyeing their neighbours' moves and looking to upgrade defences in a region full of long-running insurgencies, potential maritime disputes and growing wealth.
Japan's defence minister told the gathering that the country, anxious about North Korea's latest nuclear test, would not strike first but it was still looking to boost its airforce with Lockheed Martin F-22 fighter jets.
Top executives from firms such as Boeing, the Pentagon's No.2 defense supplier, flew to Singapore to rub shoulders with potential clients, as they look to expand foreign sales at a time when the Obama government is starting to cap defence project spending.
'In the event that I'm meeting with any defence suppliers, it will be the last I'll be speaking to you,' Sri Lanka's Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama told Reuters, fresh from a military success that ended a two-decade old Tamil Tiger insurgency.
Air and naval demand
Boeing's defense chief Jim Albaugh told a briefing he saw growing Asian demand for air and naval forces as the region looks to protect its trade and territory.
Boeing met with India's top military official Vijay Singh at one of the hotel's private conference rooms, but the meeting was brief, and Singh later met with Britain's BAE Systems.
Boeing may not have had much luck, as Cambodia's Defence Minister Tea Banh told Reuters he also met Boeing but was not buying anything for now.
Boeing is vying for a US$10 billion (S$14 billion) Indian contract for warplanes, one of the world's biggest arms deals, together with Lockheed, Saab, Russia and a European consortium. India plans to spend more than $30 billion over the next five years to modernise its largely Soviet-era weapons systems. -- REUTERS
