12 exhibitors, including 10 from China, withdraw from Singapore Airshow 2020
Apart from the 10, Gulfstream and Textron Aviation will also not attend, citing need to protect workers' health
Singapore
THE organiser of the Singapore Airshow 2020 on Monday confirmed that 12 exhibitors, including 10 from China, have withdrawn from next week's event due to the novel coronavirus outbreak.
Experia Events said that the 10 exhibitors from China withdrew due to the Ministry of Health's latest restriction on new visitors who have been in mainland China within the last 14 days.
They are Ampaire Inc, Acevision, Ameco Beijing, Beijing Implant Science & Technology, China Aviation Industrial Base, China National Aero-Technology Import & Export, Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac), Shandong Stopart Brake Materials, United Enterprise Group and Zhuhai Airshow Company.
The remaining two companies are Gulfstream and Textron Aviation, whose withdrawals were first reported by Reuters earlier on Monday.
Experia Events, which originally expected more than 1,000 participating companies and over 55,000 trade attendees at the airshow starting on Feb 11, acknowledged that Singapore's recent travel restrictions and company policies on employee travel during this period are likely to reduce the number of exhibitors and visitors. It will have doctors and medics on standby to attend to visitors who feel unwell.
Reuters quoted Gulfstream and Textron Aviation as saying that their decision was a precautionary measure to protect their employees' health.
It also reported that South Korea's air force, including its Black Eagles aerobatic team that had performed at recent editions of the Singapore Airshow, will be withdrawing. According to Russian media, Russian aerospace group Rostec plans to send a reduced delegation to the show.
The death toll from the virus was 362 as of Monday, including the first death outside China reported in the Philippines. The total number of confirmed infections stood at 17,485.
The death rate from the novel coronavirus is currently about 2 per cent compared to around 10 per cent during the 2003 Sars epidemic, though the virus has sickened more people than Sars. Studies on how quickly it spreads remain inconclusive, with a commonly used measure - known as the basic reproduction number - being difficult to calculate.
The virus was first reported as a string of pneumonia-like cases in Wuhan in December, before the World Health Organization identified it in early January as a new strain of coronavirus. It has since spread to several countries, including Singapore, Malaysia, France, South Korea and Canada.
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