Dubai: Representatives from 132 nations attended Dubai’s two-day Expo 2020 International Planning Meeting (IPM), which kicked off on Monday, Dubai Expo 2020 organisers said on Tuesday.
Dubai won the right to host the 2020 world’s fair in 2013, beating out cities in Turkey, Russia and Brazil. Following the completion of last year’s Expo in Milan, Italy, authorities in Dubai have been moving forward with their plans for the 2020 event.
More than 370 senior representatives from around the world, from 132 nations, attending Monday’s opening of the IPM, were briefed on Dubai’s plans for Expo 2020, including its “legacy, theme, and master plan, as well as the city’s readiness to host the global mega-event,” a statement from the organisers said.
“We intend to make Expo 2020 Dubai the most inclusive World Expo ever staged,” Reem Al Hashemi, UAE Minister of State for International Cooperation and Director General Expo 2020 Dubai Bureau, told the audience of diplomats, according to the statement.
“Collaboration has shaped our theme and every single nation here has valuable insights and experiences to offer the world ... “We need to hear them, our tens of millions of visitors will need to see and understand them. Expo is a tool, a powerful live vehicle for communicating the best of what your nation has to offer,” she said.
The 132 countries represented included India, China, Bangladesh, Pakistan, France, Germany, the Philippines, Canada, Australia, Russia, the United Kingdom and Ireland, the statement said.
Mozambique, Uganda and Sierra Leone and small-island nations such as Samoa, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu also attended the meet.
“The international representatives here at Expo 2020 Dubai’s IPM meeting were impressed by the plans they saw, and the level of integration and cooperation across the many government bodies involved in the delivery of a project of this scale,” said Vicente G. Loscertales, the Secretary General of the International Exhibitions Bureau (BIE), the intergovernmental organisation responsible for overseeing expo.
“The potential participants also now have a clear sense of the organiser’s vision for this Expo to be a truly international platform for collaboration, with a global legacy benefits each participant nation,” he added.
One of the sessions at IPM discussed Dubai’s readiness to host 25 million visitors to the Expo in 2020 and 2021, and the preparations being made by the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA), the tourism sector and in Dubai South to host the event. This includes the ‘Route 2020’ extension to the Metro and Dubai’s Tourism Vision 2020.
Expo 2020 Dubai aims to host more than 180 countries. Each country will have an individual pavilion.
The event, which will run from October 20, 2020 to April 10, 2021, is expected to attract 25 million visitors, with 70 per cent of all visitors likely to come from outside the UAE.
