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Eight countries that include seven NATO allies and a partner nation has agreed on multinational cooperation to acquire maritime battle decisive munitions. The defence ministers of France, Belgium, Italy, Poland, Netherlands, Spain, Portugal and Finland have signed the pact at a meeting in Brussels, the capital city of Belgium. Finland is the partner nation.

Rose Gottemoeller, the NATO Deputy Secretary-General said at the signing ceremony that the pact was "a significant first step towards establishing European stockpiles of high-quality maritime munitions. In time, this initiative will enhance our forces' interoperability, our ability to share munitions, and our capacity work together in an effective and efficient way." As part of the pact, these eight nations will cooperate in obtaining maritime munitions to achieve economies of scale that is linked with lower unit prices. Besides, all the members will also discuss other collaboration aspects in munitions like common warehousing.

Munitions include surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles, gun shells and torpedoes. In July 2018, the seven members of NATO allies signed an agreement to help regulate naval weapons by uniting munitions purchases to accomplish economies of scale. Also, during the summit last year, 16 members of NATO and three partner nations – Finland, Macedonia and Austria - signed a pact to cooperate for land battle key munitions.

John Barilaro, Deputy Premier of New South Wales, has announced that the state has effectively locked-in capital city Sydney as the home of PACIFIC International Maritime Expo, for 2019 and 2021. It is one of the largest biannual defence and maritime industry events in the world and an international exhibition one of its kind in the entire Indo-Asia-Pacific region. This Maritime Exposition includes high-level conferences on civil and defence maritime matters with an industry exhibition. The event will feature the conference of chief of Navy’s Seapower, and other important conferences staged by civil organisations like the Royal Institution of Naval Architects, Maritime Industry Australia Limited, the Institute of Marine Engineering, Engineers Australia and Science and Technology.

NSW defence advocate and retired Air Marshal John Harvey said the state has offered a highly skilled workforce, important industrial capabilities and world-class academic institutions with a focus on maritime research & defence. The 2019 and 2021 events will be the fifth and sixth events to be supported by the government of NSW as the chief sponsor. More than 540 companies from 25 countries came to the event that held last time in Sydney. There were 79 international delegations and almost 17000 attendees. The 2019 Pacific International Maritime Exposition, will be held at International Convention Centre in Darling Harbour of Sydney from 8th to 10th October this year. The event will get support from the Australian Defence Force, especially the Department of Industry, the Royal Australian Navy and Innovation & Science.