PARIS — The Japanese city of Osaka will host the World Expo in 2025, after beating out cities in Russia and Azerbaijan in the race to host an event expected to draw millions of visitors and showcase the local economy and culture.
Shouts of joy in Japanese erupted in the Paris auditorium when the 170 member states of the Bureau International des Expositions voted Friday in favor of Osaka’s bid. Dark-suited officials hugged and jumped up and down, and Japan’s economy and trade minister, Hiroshige Seko, said he felt “Excellent! I’m excited! I also feel a heavy responsibility to make Expo 2025 successful.”
Back in Tokyo, Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, said in a statement that the country will make an utmost effort to “achieve a magnificent expo in Osaka that would give dreams and surprises to everyone in the world.” Hosting a world expo in Japan would be “a golden opportunity to promote fascinating charms of Japan to the rest of the world,” Abe said.
Past world’s fairs introduced such wonders as the Eiffel Tower, the Ferris Wheel and Seattle’s Space Needle. Today’s version is aimed at finding solutions to challenges facing humanity.
Osaka proposed an expo on a man-made island on the theme of “Society 5.0” and how to leverage robotics and artificial intelligence for the public good.
World Expos, which are held every five years, can last up to six months and cost millions of dollars to host, but can help put a city on the global map. Milan hosted the last one in 2015, and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates is set to host the next one in 2020. No U.S. city has hosted a world’s fair since the 1980s.
The Russian city of Yekaterinburg was runner-up – the second loss this week for Russia at an international organization, after the Russian candidate to be president of global police agency Interpol lost out to a South Korean rival.
The capital of the oil-rich former Soviet country of Azerbaijan, Baku, came in third in Friday’s expo vote.
Osaka pitched itself as the safe, reliable choice – notably because it already held the 1970 expo.
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