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South Korea
This Week in AsiaEconomics

Can BTS, Squid Game’s Lee Jung-jae help South Korea edge out Saudi Arabia to host the 2030 World Expo?

  • Busan is one of four cities, along with Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh, Rome, and Odesa in war-torn Ukraine vying to host the 2030 world fair
  • The city’s mayor Park Heong-joon said in an interview that his campaign team was ready to tap on expertise from Shanghai, which hosted the 2010 World Expo

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Busan Mayor Park Heong-joon with BTS member Jungkook. Photo: Handout
Bhavan Jaipragas
K-pop boy band BTS may be on a break to pursue solo projects, but South Korea is hoping the seven pop stars will nonetheless be doing some heavy lifting for the country as it bids to host the 2030 World Expo.

South Korea’s second largest city, the southeastern seaside metropolis of Busan, is among four contenders hoping to host the 2030 world fair.

The planet’s major cities have long prized World Expo hosting rights, where avant-garde inventions of the time such as the sewing machine, the lawnmower and the first vehicle running on oil have been introduced.

Governments tend to spare no expense when it comes to hosting. The 2010 Shanghai World Expo, for instance, reportedly cost a staggering US$40 billion.

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Dubai last year spent an eye watering US$7 billion for a fair that was held on a desert site the size of 600 football fields. That event, delayed from 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, will be followed by the Osaka World Expo in 2025.
Other bidders for the 2030 edition include the Italian capital Rome, and war-torn Ukraine’s Odesa – but most observers say the front runner is the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh.
BTS performing at the Grammy Awards in April. The K-pop act are ambassadors for South Korea’s 2030 World Expo bid. Photo: AP
BTS performing at the Grammy Awards in April. The K-pop act are ambassadors for South Korea’s 2030 World Expo bid. Photo: AP
The kingdom last year signalled it hoped the hosting of the six-month-long world fair will serve as a culmination of its plans to diversify the economy away from oil. The kingdom’s powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said the event would “represent an extraordinary opportunity to share with the world our lessons from this unprecedented transformation”.
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