The NATO Industry Forum 2013 concluded after a series of speeches and panel sessions discussing ways to improve NATO-Industry collaboration. The turnout this year was massive with almost 500 representatives from NATO and Industry.

This year’s forum took place in Istanbul and was hosted by Turkey. Representing the NATO Headquarters, the Deputy Secretary General, Ambassador Alexander Vershbow, spoke about how Industry and NATO can better work together in areas such as Smart Defence. Ambassador Vershbow said, “We are keen to promote a new level of cooperation between NATO and our defence industry. The key objective of our NATO-Industry Forum here this week is to bring us closer to such a mutually beneficial relationship. And I am confident we will get there.”  Vershbow stated that “We are faced with increasingly complex global security challenges and shrinking defence budgets in many of our NATO nations. These two factors combined mean that effective security today requires a new level of multinational cooperation.