The World Expo and Expo are international events that are as good as the Olympics or the World Cup.
The vote to determine the final venue for the 2030 Expo (November 28) is now just two months away.
While President Yoon Seok-yeol is making an all-out diplomatic effort to attract Busan, our government is engaged in a fierce competition with Saudi Arabia, which puts ‘oil money’ at the forefront.
Reporter Shin Hyeon-jun looked at the situation at the Expo.
[Reporter]
Why should we host the 2030 Expo?
The 2030 Expo is a registered expo held every five years, so it is much larger in scale and symbolism than the 1993 Daejeon and 2012 Yeosu Expos.
If successful, it is expected that not only will the country’s status be raised, but it will also have an economic effect of 61 trillion won and create jobs for 500,000 people.
[Han Deok-soo / Prime Minister: Hosting the Busan World Expo is not just Busan’s event. I believe that the entire nation should work together as one to pursue a national agenda.]
Has Busan entered the Expo competition late?
The first to submit an application for hosting was Moscow, Russia, in April 2021.
Busan submitted an application to host the Expo메이저사이트 two months later in June, and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Rome, Italy, and Odessa, Ukraine also entered the bid.
However, it has been reported that Saudi Arabia, stimulated by Dubai’s selection as the host site for the 2020 Expo, has been making diplomatic appeals to host the Expo for about a year prior to submitting the application.
In Korea, the Yoon Seok-yeol government came into power last year and designated it as a national task, with the president directly jumping into the publicity campaign.
[Seok-yeol Yoon / President (25th): It was emphasized that the Busan Expo will be a value-oriented expo that shifts the paradigm of the international community from competition to solidarity.] What is the current situation at the Expo
?
Currently, the three remaining candidate cities are Busan, Riyadh, and Rome.
Riyadh has been evaluated as the most advanced as Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Bin Salman went ‘all-in’ in the bid to attract the country through aggressive promotions using ‘oil money’.
Last June, Italian media reported that Riyadh secured about 70 votes, Rome secured about 50 votes, and Busan secured about 30 votes.
However, as President Yoon met with the leaders of 89 countries, nearly half of the 181 member countries, this year alone, and government envoys focused on Africa and Central and South America, which have many member countries, the Korean government believes that Busan and Riyadh are currently in the middle of nowhere.
The host city for the 2030 Expo will be decided at the general meeting of the International Exhibition Organization to be held in Paris, France on November 28.
If there are no more than 2/3 votes in the first round, the city with the fewest votes is removed and a second round of voting is held to elect a candidate with a majority.