KITA (Chairman: Jin-Sik Yoon), the Republic of Korea Navy and the Association of Republic of Korea Navy (AROKN) co-hosted International Marine Defense Industry Exhibition 2025 (MADEX 2025) from Wednesday to Saturday, 28 - 31 May at Bexco in Busan.
MADEX has been held every two years since 1999 and this year's MADEX marks the 14th exhibition. It is Korea's largest exhibition specialising in marine defense industry, which showcases new cutting-edge technologies of the marine defense sector. With the growing competitiveness and global intereset in the Korean defence sector, 700 booths were occupied by 200 companies, including Korean defence companies and foreign companies* from 14 countries**. The size of the exhibition grew by 24% compared to the previous exhibition.
* Austria, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, Singapore, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States
** HD Hyundai Heavy Industries, LIG Nex1, Hanwha Ocean, Hanwha Aerospace, Hanwha Systems, GE Aerospace, Thales, Rolls-Royce etc.
Public - Private - Military partnership can be highlighted in this year's exhibition. This effort attracted the largest-ever number of overseas buyers and military representatives. KITA, the ROK Navy and ROK Marines Corps collaborated to invite 70 navy and marine representatives from 30 countries. Additionally, KITA worked with the Defense Acquisition Program Administration to invite 22 high-level defence acquisition officers from six countries, including Romania, Poland and Portugal. These representatives had first-hand experiences of advanced military technology and cutting-edge weapons. They also had opportunities for business meeting and making site visits to weapon production facilities.
KITA also worked with KOTRA to invite 15 overseas buyers from 13 countries. These buyers and representatives from Korean shipbuilding and shipbuilding equipment companies were invited to attend a business meeting to support these companies to expand their business overseas. This year, a "Special Pavillion for Start-ups" was newly introduced to support Korean marine defence and military equipment start-ups to expand their business in overseas markets. This Special Pavillion was occupied by eight start-ups* and showcased innovative products and technologies, including environmentally-friendly ship parts and AI-based vessel navigation system.
* Salus Marine Systems, specialising in Radar Solutions for maritime surveillance and safety, Seadronix specialising in AI-based vessel navigation system, EcoMarine, specialising in environmentally-friendly ship parts and Cochl, specialising in voice recognition AI software
Myeong-ja Lee, the Executive Director of Global Marketing Group at KITA said, "We are seeing higher demand of Korean defence products triggered by global security uncertainties" and added, "We are committed to maintaining close private - public - military collaboration to maximise the unique characteristics of the defence industry, which typically result in exports of a single defense product resulting in a chain reaction of exports of other relevant products and equipment". She highlighted, "We will be at the front line to offer greater business opportunities to our companies".