Offers for Malaysia’s pavilion in World Expo in China

KUALA LUMPUR: The Tourism Ministry has received offers from three Chinese local governments to take over the entire building of the Malaysia Pavilion after its exhibition ends this month. Its minister Datuk Seri Dr Ng Yen Yen said the offers came from Hebei, Wuxi and Guangdong local governments. ”They have expressed interest in taking over the building after the World Expo ends late this month and exhibiting it in their cities,” she told reporters at a press conference on the Malaysia Pavilion in the Shanghai World Expo here Friday.

Dr Ng said the Finance Ministry had allocated RM20mil for the building of the Malaysia pavilion and another RM15mil for its maintenance and operating costs. She said all pavilions exhibited would have to be demolished after the expo ended, at the cost of the respective countries. ”However, if we are giving away the building to one of these governments, we will not have to spend money at all to demolish it. ”It will be also a win-win situation for both parties because the building will continue to be exhibited in China and it will be a good promotion material for our country,” she said. She said the offers received showed that people were attracted to the Malaysia Pavilion.

However, she said, the ministry had yet to decide which local government it would give the building to, which would also have to bear the transportation cost if it took over the building. Dr Ng said the pavilion, which opened its door to the public since May 1 this year, had received a total of 6.366mil of visitors as of Wednesday (Oct 20). “The figure made up 10% of the total number of visitors who went to the expo, where 300 pavilions have participated in the exhibition,” she said. She said the Malaysia Pavilion received an average of 40,000 visitors a day with the highest number of visitors recorded on Oct 16, whereby 65,000 people had gone in to the pavilion.

“Our building cost is much lower than other countries,” she said. She said Australia had spent USD82mil (about RM256mil) while New Zealand had spent USD22.8mil (RM70.7mil), Singapore (USD22mil or RM68mil), Indonesia (USD10mil or RM31mil) and Thailand (USD27.14mil or RM84mil). She said the ministry had been very careful with the money spent on the pavilion and that the contract was granted based on the open tender basis. ”We had the engineers seconded by the Works Department for the building of the pavilion and we were monitored by the Shanghai Expo technical committee on a daily basis during its construction to ensure that it meets their criteria,” she said. She said the pavilion did not close its door at all for any repair or alteration work, except once, when there was a heavy downpour and its staff had forgotten to close the window on the roof. “It was a human error and it was not a leakage but it won’t happen again,” she said.

-thestar online.