Sharjah, March 21, 2019 / Kabar /. 190 countries from around the world confirmed their participation in EXPO 2020, that will be held in the United Arab Emirates, Najeeb Ali, Executive Director of EXPO 2020 Bureau told reporters in Sharjah.
The meeting with reporters was organized by the Emirates News Agency (WAM) in the framework of the 8th edition of the International Government Communication Forum (IGCF) in Sharjah.
“We are very fortunate that EXPO 2020 has already confirmation of 190 countries from around the world. Many of them have already signed the participation contract,” Najeeb Ali said adding that it’s one of the highest numbers of participation in any EXPO long history.
“For the first time in the history of EXPO, we introduced a concept of every country will have a pavilion,” he said speaking about the uniqueness of EXPO 2020. He noted that in many EXPOs usually there was a group of the countries usually chosen by geographical means.
“In our case, we changed that idea. No matter who you are, you will have a pavilion,” the executive director of EXPO 2020 Bureau said.
He also told about the targets. “We have put ourselves a target that we will finish all the buildings and the infrastructure related to EXPO 2020 one year before its opening, that is October-November this year,” Najeeb Ali said.
According to his data, a large number of labourers - approximately 37 thousand people work on the site on a daily basis to finish construction works on time. “We are on schedule in terms of completing that construction,” he said.
The executive director stressed that a number of countries have already started their groundbreaking on the site and few of the countries have finalized the design of their pavilions.
Speaking about visitors, Najeeb Ali pointed out that it will be very unique characteristic of EXPO 2020 compared to any others. “Usually the majority of visitors, come to EXPO, are from the host country. We are targeting 25million visits to the site itself during 6 months, which is not the largest number of any EXPO. But the unique part we are actually targeting 70 % of our visitation actually come from outside the country, this never happened before,” he said.
The executive director of EXPO 2020 Bureau also told reporters about other preparations: cleaning, facilities’ management, more than half a million meals that will be offered on a single day, transportation system, construction and expanding metro, about 30 thousand parking places available on the site, that will be 5G site.
Najeeb Ali said that the community plays a great role in making this EXPO success. “Every single member of the community is waiting for the opening of EXPO,” he said speaking about volunteers, the registration of whom has been started 3 years before the opening of EXPO.
He also noted the confirmation of registration of 50 thousand volunteers into their database. “We already met with a few of them and some of them already working with us as a member of EXPO team. This is also something new,” the executive director said.
The opening of Dubai EXPO 2020 is scheduled for Oct. 20. UAE selected the theme "Connecting Minds, Creating the Future", sub-themes being Sustainability, Mobility and Opportunity.
The previous EXPO was held in Astana, Kazakhstan on June 10 – Sept. 10, 2017. The EXPO's theme was "Future Energy". 115 countries participated in Astana EXPO.
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