The DSA 2016 was attended by 29 international pavilions including Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia, Brazil, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, South Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain , Switzerland, Netherlands, Turkey, UAE, Ukraine, United Kingdom and United States.

Turkey represents the largest pavilion at DSA 2016 with more than 50 companies that exhibit defense and security equipment for the land, air and naval forces.

“Defence Services Asia Exhibition (DSA) 2016 enables many experts in the field of defence and security to exchange opinions, experiences, and best practices with all the participants,” said Rana Tanveer Hussain, Malaysian Minister for Defence Production. He is impressed with latest innovations and breakthrough in the defence and security sectors, for instance, Combat Medicine/Battlefield Health care, Humanitarian and Defence Relief (HADR),Cyber security, UAVs and Combat Robotics.

Malaysian Defence Minister Hishammuddin said "Malaysia would like to increase its domestic defense industry and create new relationship with the most important defense companies in the world;".

"We encourage Malaysian defence companies to collaborate strategically and manufacture military equipment locally with the experience and the knowledge of all international defence and security companies from all over the world.", he added.

Leading international defence and security companies taking part at DSA 2016 including Airbus, BAE Systems, Bell Helicopter, Finmeccanica, MBDA, Roxoboronexport, SAAB, Rheinmetall, FNSS, Kongsberg, Denel and Thales.

There is also a large presence of the most important Malaysian Companies such as AVP Engineering, Boustead Naval Shipyard, Destini Bhd, Deftech (DRB Hicom Defence Technologies), Muhibbah Engineering, Rohde & Schwarz Malaysia, Sapura Defence, SME Ordnance, System Consultancy and Weststar Group.

Malaysia has shown its ability to work with foreign defense companies. For example, DEFTECH has work with the Turkish Company FNSS to design and produce one of the most modern 8x8 armoured vehicle, the AV8 which is now in service with the Malaysian armed forces.

As part of the ASEAN defence industry initiative, Deftech workd with the Thai Company Chaiseri to acquire first batch of 20 4x4 High Mobility Armoured Vehicle which was unvieled at DSA 2016 under the name of "Lipanbara".

For each edition, DSA defence exhibition features new activities, at the Cyberspace Security, the Malaysian Defence and Security Hall, the Putrajaya Forum organised by the Malaysian Institute of Defence and Security and more.