Putin attends opening of Moscow air show MAKS

Russian MAKS-2005 international air show opened on Tuesday in Zhukovsky. Russian President Vladimir Putin attended the opening ceremony. He arrived at Zhukovsky near Moscow by helicopter, landing in the exhibition grounds.

“We see the future of our air and space industry in cooperation with our partners in other countries,” Putin said in his address at the opening of the MAKS-2005 air and space show. “Over the past few years such contacts have been growing and developing successfully with our North American partners and with partners in Europe and Asia, too.”

Putin said that although MAKS was a relatively new event, as compared to other air and space shows, world interest in the Moscow air show had been growing, reports ITAR-TASS.

MAKS, staged by Russia for the seventh time, is attended for the first time by the leaders of two major players of the space market — the European Space Agency and the Chinese National Space Administration. However, the greatest number of visitors is expected at displays of Russian Space Agency Roskosmos which plans to put on show for the first time the life-size model of the brand-new Clipper shuttle, among other exhibits, and to present the world’s first commercial tourist project on circling the moon.

Sponsors of the show told the agency that it will “inevitably result in multimillion contracts for enterprises of the national aerospace industry”, and also in a number of international joint projects in the development of high technologies as well as in international cooperation. Along with the business programme, the 2005 air show will lure visitors with a spectacular aerobatics programme, which will include aces from Russia, the U.S., France and Italy, reports Mosnews.