New BRIDEX 2009 venue ready for handover

THE Brunei Darussalam International Defence Exhibition and Conference (BRIDEX) 2009 organisers officially signed contracts with seven local small and medium enterprises yesterday.

The SMEs will now have an opportunity to promote their products and services as well as be a part of BRIDEX and will have booths strategically located around the exhibition and conference areas. "We are promoting a world class exhibition and we have a standard to maintain and upkeep, and so the local vendors that have been contracted, are expected to keep up with the standard that we have set," said a representative of the BRIDEX organising committee. He added that this would ensure that the services and products be world class.

Some of the SMEs that signed yesterday, included a foot reflexology and massage booth for exhibitors and participants of BRIDEX, a juice stall, food and beverages stall, one for souvenirs as well as other amenities. "This will give us an opportunity to showcase the products that we have for sale. Due to the global crisis, we are not aiming to have expensive souvenirs, but we want useful souvenirs of high quality, which will include sunshades, umbrellas and many more," said Aaron Goh, marketing manager of Armtrix Enterprise.

"We have a booth located somewhere on the grounds, and we are not setting up a booth to increase sales or anything like that, what we are opening this booth for is to take the opportunity to promote our company to the participants and exhibitors," said Wong Teck Wan, owner of E&E Traditional Massage and Reflexology.

One company that has also signed on is the global coffee and tea house franchise, The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, which will unveil their mobile shop. "We have wanted to do this before, and now we will have one mobile shop which will sell nearly everything that we currently sell in the shop. This is a good opportunity to showcase The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf mobile shop and to promote our brand," said Khairul Nidzam Hj Abu Bakar, operations manager of the brand.

The Nyonya Restaurant, one of the popular restaurants in Brunei, that has also signed on to be a food and beverages vendor, will be packing their food and then reheating it on site for the exhibitors and participants.

"This is a good opportunity to promote the Nyonya Restaurant especially with so many participants from around the world," said Tess Marquez, a representative of the restaurant.

With 18 days left till the actual event, the event organisers have encouraged the vendors to keep to their businesses' reputations and to highlight that a world-class standard is expected. Preparations are being made at the newly-built Exhibition Hall located in Jerudong, where today a tree planting has been organised to officially pass the keys of the venue to the organisers.

The BRIDEX 2009 Conference is aimed at a high profile international audience of senior national security and defence figures, including strategists, network centric warfare analysts, systems architects and engineers, defence procurement and acquisition executives, intelligence directors, military attachés, and influential political leaders including government officials and policy-makers, senior defence industry executives responsible for shaping and implementing strategy within defence companies, official BRIDEX delegates, exhibitors and visitors, policy and acquisition officials from defence ministries and other government agencies, senior executives from research and development organisations, international and national media, and academics working in the fields of international defence.

- Debbie Too

The Brunei Times