The Bulgarian army must be modernized and fortunately that process has already started, the newly-appointed Director of the Defense Institute of the Bulgarian Armed Forces Professor Todor Tagarev told the Bulgarian National Radio on Sunday ahead of the start of the International Defense Equipment Exhibition HEMUS 2016. The exhibition is to be held in the city of Plovdiv (Central South Bulgaria) between May 25 and 28, 2016. The event is held once in two years and this time the interest towards the forum is huge, Professor Tagarev went on to say. Forty one Bulgarian and over twenty foreign scientific and research organizations will attend this year’s forum. Chinese and Japanese companies are to participate at HEMUS exhibition for the first time, thus broadening the geographic scope of the exhibition. The motto of this year’s exhibition is Scientific Research as Key Factor for Acquiring New Defensive Capabilities. Over 70 reports of the current condition of modern defense will be made during the forum.