Reed in bed with government again - this time in India

Once again, the Asian operations of Reed Exhibitions appear to have decided that the best way to bulk up in the region is to work with government. Following it's ground-breaking Sinopharm deal in August last year, we see from OilOnline that its Spearhead division (RSx) has done a deal with India’s stateowned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) to organise jointly the biggest oil and gas show in the country, Petrotech from its next, 2007 edition.

The article quotes Nik Rudge, Group Exhibitions Director for RSx, saying: “Petrotech is arguably the most important and influential meeting on the Indian sub continent and so we fully recognise the honor of the award and are determined to justify the faith shown in RSx". I wonder who's arguing with them about the show's status. Or perhaps, this is just false modesty along the lines of the Carlsberg campaign, "Probably the best beer in the world".

Just after the Sinopharm deal, we quoted Reed Exhibitions CEO Mike Rushbridge saying "I hope that other state-owned enterprises see what we're achieving with Sinopharm and we hope to develop other such partnerships". So, there you have it.

Airshow Update: Elsewhere and, in relation to Reed Exhibitions, we noticed a little piece in the Singapore "Electric New Paper" about the battle of the airshows (see here and here for some of the history of this). It's mostly old news but, at the end, they make two interesting claims:

1. For the new Singapore Airshow in 2008, "the exhibition space has already been sold out".
2. "...rentals are 10 to 15 per cent lower than those at Asian Aerospace".