Wednesday, November 25, 2009

LIMA '09: Free Daily Entry to Maritime Show

By Adib Povera

LANGKAWI: There is good news for visitors to the coming Langkawi International Maritime and Aerospace exhibition (Lima '09).

Defence Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi yesterday announced that the public may now view the maritime segment of the five-day show without charge every day.

"In previous years, the public were only allowed to watch the displays of ships and boats on the last day of the exhibition.

"However, for this year's Lima, the maritime segment is open to the public every day of the exhibition," he said after inspecting the aerospace exhibition ground at Mahsuri International Exhibition Centre (MIEC) here. Zahid earlier visited the vessels and maritime demonstration at Porto Malai.

Also present were Royal Malaysian Air Force chief Gen Datuk Seri Rodzali Daud, Royal Malaysian Navy deputy chief Vice-Admiral Datuk Mohammed Noordin Ali and Kedah police chief Datuk Syed Ismail Syed Azizan.

Zahid said opening the maritime segment to the public was to woo more local and international visitors to the exhibition from Dec 1 to 5.

The exhibition will showcase 96 warships and other vessels. A total of 40,000 trade visitors are expected to flood Lima '09.

Zahid said discussions were ongoing with Lima '09 organiser HW Lima Sdn Bhd to halve the admission fee for the aerospace segment for the public to RM10.

"The aerospace segment is open to the public on the last day of the exhibition, for a fee of RM20 per person. I hope the organiser could consider my request that the fee be slashed by 50 per cent to RM10."

To assist exhibitors to commute around the island, 12 superbikes from the Malaysia Superbikes Club would be stationed at MIEC, he said.

Zahid said, for a fee, exhibitors could use the superbikes to commute between the exhibition centre and their hotels.

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