The World Expo will be held in Osaka in 2025 and will bring together more than 160 countries and territories.
With just under five months until the Osaka 2025 World Expo, preparations are well underway.
Delegates from around the world gathered in Paris on Tuesday to discuss the latest developments and find solutions to the challenges faced by organizers.
The World’s Fair is one of the oldest and largest international events held every five years since 1851.
Next year, more than 160 countries will present their latest innovations and technologies in Osaka.
Osaka’s next challenge: attracting more visitors
The theme of the next universal exhibition is “Designing the future society for our lives”.
An important subject that could inspire other countries to tackle future problems such as population aging and rapid urbanization, according to Dimitri Kerkentzes, secretary general of the Bureau international des expositions (BIE).
“We need to start addressing these issues as a global community. One country is not enough to act, we need to act in unison. I hope to see new thought processes and new innovations in Osaka. I hope that we will see where the world will go in the next ten or fifteen years”he told Euronews.
But with only 7.3 million tickets sold in November, Japanese authorities hope to strengthen their communication strategy to attract more European visitors.
“There are a lot of exhibitions from Europe on various topics such as green energy, climate change, etc. We would like to show them to Europeans. The communication aspect will be one of the main challenges we will have to raise”said Hirofumi Yoshimura, governor of Osaka.
Dimitri Kerkentzes, however, insisted that ticket sales would increase sharply as the opening date of the Osaka World Expo approaches.
Ukraine will participate in Osaka 2025
The Osaka governor also announced that Ukraine will participate in the exhibition next year, despite Russia’s full invasion. Moscow withdrew from the event in 2023.
Organizers hope the World’s Fair will bring unity in a time of global instability and conflict.
“The exhibitions are an apolitical gathering of countries, a non-confrontational gathering of countries. It’s an opportunity for the world to come together, to talk together and to have a dialogue… We need a place where the world can come together and, for once, maybe we don’t let our differences separate us, but let our differences bring us together.”declared the Secretary General of the BIE.
The Osaka World Expo will take place from April to October 2025 and is expected to welcome some 28 million visitors, according to Japanese authorities.