ADEX 2023

20/10/202326/10/2023 Paolo Valpolini

With the increasing tension in the whole world a nation like the Republic of Korea, which is living since decades in a constant cold confrontation with North Korea along the 38° parallel, cannot avoid keeping its armed forces updated in terms of equipment. To ensure national sovereignty ROK must depend the least possible from foreign providers for its military equipment, hence its defence industry has been growing constantly in the last years, which now makes Seoul a major player on the international market also in terms of export, with recent successes in Europe and Australia.

The Aerospace & Defense Exhibition, ADEX in short, is a turntable where national and regional players meet among them and with the international defence community, exchanging their ideas in the numerous conference sand seminars organised during the one-week event, four being the professional days, industry showing the most relevant items and new systems.

The 2023 edition marked a record number of exhibitors that gathered at Seoul Airport, in Seongnam City, at the southern outskirts of Seoul. This was mainly due to the increase in national participants, nearly 350 with a +29% compared to 2021, international participation being also on the rise with over 203 exhibitors, nearly back to pre-COVID numbers.

The five halls were full of exhibitors, for a total of over 2,300 stands, while the flight line hosted the whole catalogue of Republic of Korea Army vehicles and other systems, and the full representation of Republic of Korea Air Force flying assets. The United States Air Force was present in force, with aircraft ranging from the U-2 to the C-17 and the F-22, which kept many visitors with the eye fixed towards the sky during its flight demo.

Numerous new systems were presented, mainly by the Korean industry. EDR On-Line readers will find articles presenting part of them scrolling this page.