After a thrilling night of voting in Paris, Dubai has won
the right to host the World Expo 2020 and celebrations begin across the UAE
after the winner of World Expo 2020 bid was announced in Paris on 27/11/2013.
With this, Dubai will become the first city in the Middle
East to host the global event. Dubai had in its proposal offered to hold the
event form October 20, 2020 to April 10, 2021.
The announcement was made in Paris at the General
Assembly of the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE), the organization
responsible for overseeing and regulating the bidding and the selection of the
host city.
Dubai- with the theme ‘Connecting Minds, Creating The
Future’, which focuses on infrastructure, sustainability and economic
opportunities- beat Izmir (Turkey), Ekaterinburg (Russia), and Sao Paulo
(Brazil). The candidate city was decided by a voting procedure that comprised
three secret ballots for which 167 member nations cast their votes.
The UAE’s performance improved with each vote. They improved
their first round showing of 77 votes by gaining 10 more votes in the second
round, while heavyweights Russia improved by only two. This gave credence to
the fact that any political maneuverings that had been expected by countries
had been negated by the sheer confidence of the UAE’s performance.
Dubai Expo 2020- 10 quick facts
1. The World Expo is held every five years for a period of six
months
2. The first World Expo was held in London in 1851. It has never
been held in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia Regions.
3. The other competing cities are:
Izmir in Turkey
Ekaterinburg in Russia
Sao Paulo in Brazil
4. Dubai’s theme for the Expo is Connecting Minds,
Creating the Future. Its proposed schedule is October 2020 until April 2021,
the first Expo to run over two years stretching over UAE’s 49thNational Day and
touching on UAE’s Jubilee year in 2021.
5. The winning city will be determined through a vote by
the 168 member countries of the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE).
6. Dubai’s master plan proposes a site on 438 hectares of
land off Jebel Ali equidistant to the international airports of Dubai and Abu
Dhabi.
7. To support its theme of sustainability, the iconic
structure that covers much of the site will have photovoltaic fabric that is
planned to generate at least 50 per cent of the Expo’s power on site.
8. Dubai Expo 2020 expects to create 277,149 jobs between
2013 and 2021.
9. Forty per cent of the employment opportunities
generated would be in the travel and tourism sector.
10. Dubai Expo 2020 expects to attract 25 million unique
visitors and up to 33 million visits over the six-month period.