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At
the MSPO exhibition the crisis is nowhere to be seen |
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| Monday,
31 August 2009, 13:15 |
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The
17th International Defence Industry Exhibition scheduled
for this year will be held with several billion zlotys of
budget cuts in the defence ministry. What will be the impact
of this situation on the number of exhibitors and on the
scale and size of the exhibits? |
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We
can hardly expect to remain intact in the time of economic
slowdown, as the domestic defence industry is practically
dependent upon two purchasers, i.e. the defence ministry
and the ministry of interior and administration, with their
budgets intended for technological upgrade being substantially
reduced. The volume of production achieved by the domestic
defence industry in the time of prosperity has not been
maintained. Fortunately, however, the Armed Forces have
not entirely given up purchasing equipment, armaments and
other facilities for building a professional army. A moment
of hesitation as to whether it is worth participating in
the Exhibition or nor has also been experienced by Bumar.
Eventually, a positive decision was made. Those participating
in this exhibition realize that this is an investment in
their future. And, as I see it, this is a wise decision.
In fact, the exhibitors has increased their chance for success
to be made once the slowdown has gone. Important is also
the fact that it is easier for our defence companies to
show their products in Kielce rather than at such events
held abroad, where the price of one square metre of exhibition
space is a few times higher. There are also additional costs
relating to flights, transport of equipment, not to mention
the hotel prices, which in London, Paris or Abu Dhabi are
at least twice as high as in Kielce. Therefore the space
leased at the International Defence Industry Exhibition
2009 will be only slightly smaller than in previous years.
The difference will practically be hardly perceivable. What
is smaller is the number of exhibitors, as some of the smaller-size
companies have given up. |
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| As
befits one of Europe's largest and most important defence
industry exhibitions. |
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The
third largest exhibition project of this kind on the Old
Continent, after those in Paris and London. And it wasn't
long ago that MSPO was a fair event of slight importance
in Europe, inferior in size to the exhibitions held in the
Czech Republic and Turkey. Our fair event is very well-known
across the world. We receive delegations from China, South
Korea, India, Algeria, and many other far off countries.
Each year the exhibition is also visited by professionals
and military people representing the Polish Army, Police,
Polish Government, Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Interior
and Administration, as well as foreign delegations, military
attachés accredited to Poland, ambassadors and representatives
of institutions and organizations related to national defence
and security. |
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| What
is this promotion due to? |
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Not
long ago, the Polish Army was the second largest in the
Warsaw Pact in terms of the number of soldiers. Since the
transformations started, this number has decreased, though
the role we play, this time in NATO, is still of great importance.
The more so, as on the eve of the professionalization of
the armed forces , with the ongoing upgrade process, the
army is using increasingly better and modern equipment.
And it is due to the modernization of the army, with the
obsolete equipment being replaced with new one and with
the large-scale offset contracts being concluded, that many
defence sectors from a wide range of countries started regarding
Poland as a lucrative market for their products. Credit
for the large scale of the Kielce MSPO fair should be given
to the Polish Army, which is a good and long-term customer
of many domestic and foreign companies. Adopting our army
to NATO standards and contemporary requirements will involve
new investments, which means that companies co-operating
with the army can expect many contracts.
This year, despite the date of the MSPO fair almost coinciding
with the London fair, we receive delegations from across
the world. The Kielce fair also provides an excellent venue
for international meetings held by defence industry professionals
intending to establish business contacts with our neighbours
in central and eastern Europe. |
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In
your opinion each fair event has its special character.
In what way then, in spite of the problems resulting from
the crisis, will this year's fair be different from that
held last year? |
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I’m
very happy to see our army this year resuming the tradition,
which, by the way, accompanies all events of this kind;
the so called dynamic presentations. This is a practical
exercise for commanders and individual soldiers, while for
fair participants it is an excellent opportunity to present
the changing character of the Polish army, its modern equipment
and increasingly high skills, which enables Polish soldiers
to effectively accomplish their missions in the most demanding
operational surroundings.
This year the exhibition prepared by the Armed Forces will
be held under the motto "Professional Soldiers –
Professional Equipment”. This exhibition is organized
by the Inspectorate of Support for the Armed Forces. The
visitors will have an opportunity to watch a demonstration
of the soldiers' practical skills. On the first day of the
exhibition, as part of the dynamic presentation, special
skills will be presented by soldiers of logistics subunits,
which will show many ways in which damaged equipment can
be evacuated from the battle field. Among the actions to
be watched will be loading a damaged PT-91 tank onto a low-clearance
carrier, evacuating a damaged armoured fighting vehicle
BWP by means of a WZT-3 vehicle, as well as loading a patrol
vehicle Skorpion onto a self-loading platform. |
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MSPO
is also accompanied, which has also become a tradition,
by a whole range of seminars and conferences. Will it also
be so this year? |
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Yes,
it will. However, we are planning a few changes as compared
with such events held in the past. For many years, each
MSPO fair has had its leading country. In 2008, a national
exhibition was prepared by Sweden. So far, at MSPO we have
seen national exhibitions of Germany, France, Israel, as
well as the United States, whose exhibition organized in
2007 brought together tens of companies offering products
such as the famous helicopter Black Hawk. This year the
organizers will be the Vysehrad Group countries. Earlier,
especially when the leading country was the Unites States,
many conferences were planned. There were even too many
of them, considering the amount of time the visitors could
use. They are currently organized on such a large scale,
in addition o being so attractive, that the visitors would
like to attend as many as possible. Most of the military
staff come for one day only. No wonder that they don't want
to spend half of this day at a conference.
This is why, in spite of there being so many interesting
conferences also this year, they will be held successively,
so that the visitors will not experience kind of dissociated
personality making a decision which to choose: a tour of
the exhibition halls featuring equipment produced by defence
companies and utilized by our army or participation in a
conference. Personally, what makes me happy is the fact
that last year we resumed the tradition of conferences at
which discussions were held by officials of the defence
ministry and representatives of military equipment producers.
It turned out that there was too little time allocated for
such discussion. What has been planned for the second day
of the exhibition MSPO 2009 (during the first day there
are so many important visitors, and directors of companies
want to be present at their stands to meet them) is a meeting
attended by undersecretaries of state in the Ministry of
Defence, Zenon Kosiniak-Kamysz, the Ministry of Economy,
Dariusz Bogdan, the Ministry of the Treasury, Krzysztof
Hubert Laszkiewicz and representatives of the defence industry.
A novelty of this year’s exhibition will be the presentation
of a special award for the best exhibiting company, funded
by the President of the Republic of Poland. Moreover, the
awarded companies will be invited to the seat of the President
to attend the celebrations of the Independence Day held
on 11th November, during which the President will personally
congratulate the winners.
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The
Municipality of Kielce is of the opinion that the MSPO exhibition,
which has been organized for 17 years now, has stimulated
the development of the Kielce exhibition centre and the
city itself. Is it such an important event for the city? |
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We
also keep developing the premises of Targi Kielce. Visitors
to this year’s MSPO will see a fenced area between
the existing halls, in which another exhibition hall will
be constructed; with 6,000 square metres of exhibition space,
meeting requirements of the 21st century, made of glass
and steel, and 12 metres high. This is only the beginning
of the planned investment projects. What will be erected
together with the hall is a glazed building fulfilling the
function of a roofed entrance to the premises. The whole
extension project, the value of which has been estimated
at about PLN 170 million, also includes the development
of a congress centre with a seating capacity of 1,000. The
tender procedure will be announced in the autumn. The third
stage will be the construction of a multi-layer car park
for 380 vehicles, the capacity of which will be further
extended to accommodate about 800 vehicles. What is being
remade is also junctions and access roads – the city
has received financial resources to cover these expenses
from the UE – to the premises. In a year or two, the
multi-level junctions will make it possible to exit the
Kielce ring road and safely reach the premises. |
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| Interview
with Andrzej Mochon, President of Targi Kielce. |
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