Thursday, April 09, 2009

Russia Unaware Of Plans To Unite Paris And Moscow Air Shows

Russia Unaware Of Plans To Unite Paris And Moscow Air Shows
(NSI News Source Info) MOSCOW - April 9, 2009: Russian officials are unaware of any plans to hold popular French and Russian international air shows together, a deputy general director of Russia's Aviasalon company said on Thursday. Anne-Marie Idrac, the French secretary of state for foreign trade, told a news conference in Moscow earlier on Thursday that France planned to hold its famous Le Bourget Air Show together with Russia's MAKS air show, which has grown in popularity in the past few years. "I have not heard of these plans before, although I think it is an interesting idea. I was at the Le Bourget-2009 presentation at the French embassy in Moscow the day before, but the director of the French air show did not mention anything like that in his speech," Nikolai Zanegin said commenting on the statement. He added that Le Bourget and MAKS officials had maintained cordial relations and even exchanged some of their experiences in organizing the shows, but had never considered the possibility of bringing the shows together. The 48th Paris Air Show at Le Bourget, which marks 100 years of technological innovation in aeronautics and space conquest, will be held on June 15-21, while the MAKS is scheduled for August 18-23 in Zhukovsky in Moscow Region. Both exhibitions are held once every two years. The most recent MAKS-2007 air show attracted more than 600,000 visitors who were able to see over 260 aircraft, most of them made domestically, and watch 35 types of planes perform some 200 demonstration flights. The value of contracts signed at the show exceeded $3 billion. Zanegin said the unification issue could be discussed at the next meeting of a Russian-French working group on cooperation in the sphere of aeronautics.

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