Preparations going on smoothly for BRIDEX

PREPARATIONS for the Brunei International Defence Exhibition (BRIDEX) 2009 Conference are well under way with operations running smoothly, thanks to the support of the Ministry of Defence (MinDef) and Royal Brunei Technical Services (RBTS).

This was revealed by IHS Jane's conference staff, co-organisers of the conference, Raf Kotowicz and Antonia Carew during an interview with The Brunei Times at the BRIDEX building yesterday.

"MinDef and RBTS has done a fantastic job in terms of logistical organisation. They have been incredibly helpful in everything they have done, I think they have done a fantastic job in putting everything together.

"I can't say there's too many difficulties, it's actually refreshingly pleasant working alongside a big show and not having the difficulties that we would normally encounter with other big shows where we would do the conferences," said Kotowicz.

The conference staff has been closely involved with the conference's logistics for the past six months. "In fact, quite seriously, it's brilliant, it's really really good," said Kotowicz regarding the smooth operation.

The conference staff are tasked at organising conferences in areas of logistics, putting programmes together for the past 15 years. "We organised major conferences alongside big scale exhibitions such as BRIDEX and the Gulf Defence Conference (GDC) alongside the International Defence Exhibition and Conference (IDEX)," said Carew.

Additionally, some of the speakers arrived at the Sultanate yesterday and have been assigned their own liaison officer who will be looking after them for the duration of their stay.

This is the first time that IHS Jane's is involved with Brunei's defence exhibition. "We're really excited about it," said Carew. "We're really looking forward to it. It's going to be a great event, there will be a lot of high ranking people involved in it, a lot of senior delegates," Kotowicz added.

The conference staff are also involved in providing delegations with copies of the presentation once the conference is over.

Delegates will receive a CD-ROM containing all the speakers' presentations as well as other useful related resources. These will later be sent three working weeks after the conference. (SHS1)

The Brunei Times