Singapore’s latest biennial Air Show this year has turned out to be a failure with no deal worthy of mention. The Singapore government’s state-owned company organiser, Experia Event, even cancelled the closing news conference and chose not to reveal the total deal count – the first since the exhibition start in 2008.
An Experia Event spokesperson gave an excuse for not disclosing the total deal value saying that the information is confidential.
According to interviews by Japan media Nikkei Asia, the show had very few commercial jet aircraft sales, compared to S$40.5 billion in 2014 and S$17.9 billion in 2016.
Boeing managed to land a S$1 billion deal only in maintenance contracts, and nothing on aircraft sales.
It is unknown how much has the Singapore government spent on holding the air show event, but in 2006, a S$60 million contract was awarded to construct the exhibition site.
State media TodayOnline reported that there were 10% more visitors in this year’s Air Show and that the visitors came from “over 150 countries”. The propaganda state media did not explain where they get their statistics from.