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ABU DHABI (Reuters) - The United Arab Emirates (UAE) awarded 4.5 billion dirhams ($1.2 billion) in military procurement deals on Sunday, part of a total of 20 billion dirhams worth of purchases it expects to make at an arms fair this week, a spokesman for the expo said.

The deals awarded to local and international companies on Sunday included a 2 billion dirham award to the UAE’s NIMR Automotive, part of Tawazun Holdings, for the supply of 400 armored vehicles to the UAE Armed Forces, Rashid al Shamsi, a spokesman for the International Defence Exhibition (Idex), said.

“We expect (to award) more than 20 billion dirhams in contracts by the end of Idex,” he said. Over 1,200 companies are participating at Idex, the region’s largest defense expo.