Technology, environment mark Busan’s Expo 2030 candidacy

Seoul, Jun 9 (EFE).- The candidacy committee of the South Korean city of Busan to host the Universal Expo 2030 presented its project Thursday, before the foreign press, emphasizing new technologies developed in the city to combat climate change.

Under the slogan “Transforming our world, sailing towards a better future,” the city presented its formal candidacy to the International Bureau of Expositions in June 2021 and will compete with Rome, Riyadh and Odessa to host the event. Moscow withdrew its project to host Expo 2030 last month.

The Busan bid committee spoke Thursday on the importance of South Korea’s experience in hosting major international events such as the 2002 World Cup, the 1988 Summer Olympics and the 1993 specialized exhibitions organized in Daejeon and Yeosu in 2012.

Committee chairman Park Jung-wook said at a press conference held Thursday at the Seoul Foreign Correspondents’ Club that Busan would look to Expo 2030 to address issues such as “climate change, the digital divide and inequality.”

Park highlighted the projects underway in the city related to new technologies and climate change: from industrial facilities that aspire to be the world’s largest hydrogen production center to new housing developments.

It said the candidacy hope that if the Universal Exhibition is organized, the event will serve to present the “first prototype of a sustainable floating city in the world.”

Yoon Sung-hyuk, the committee general secretary, said he did not consider it a disadvantage that the 2025 World Expo is also held in nearby Osaka, Japan and recalled that the Japanese prefecture of Aichi hosted it in 2005, as did the Chinese city of Shanghai in 2010.

The organization also said it holding the event would help compensate for the growing population gap in South Korea, where Busan, despite being the second largest city with 10 million inhabitants in its metropolitan area, is increasingly further away from the South Korean region. Seoul, which has 26 million people, has already absorbed more than half of the national population.

The bureau will choose the city that will host Expo 2030 at the end of next year. EFE

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