Grasp Economic World Cup !

“Grasp Economic World Cup”

As the World Cup closed, many candidate countries competed severely to induce 2010 EXPO in the 131st general meeting of International Exhibitions bureau (BIE) in Paris of France at 2nd of July. It was the last general meeting prior to decide the venue in the end of this year.

2010 EXPO will be last for 6 months with 160 participating countries and 30 international organizations. At the moment five countries have applied for the host countries: China, Russia, Poland, Mexico and Korea. Yeosu of Chunnam is trying its best against well-known cities globally such as Moscow and Shanghai. Korea dispatched Chun Yun-chul - Economic Vice- Prime Minister, and Chung Mong-gu – the Chairman of 2010 World EXPO Committee and influential people to promote national image improved further by World Cup.

In the beginning address, Chun Yun-chul - Economic Vice- Prime Minister spoke “Korea, the only separated country on the earth, is the most suitable country to spread the message of the overcome of dissension and peace over the world” and added “Yeosu will give hope to other small and medium sized cities that they can host World EXPO successfully and the EXPO is not the festivals only for big cities in the world”

In case of Russia, the delegation represented by the Premier Mikhail KASYANOV participated in the meeting with the Mayer of Moscow and numbers of Novel Prize winners. President Vladimir PUTIN is involved in the EXPO deeply to use the EXPO as a turning point of solving the economic crisis. Russia strongly insisted on opening the EXPO in Moscow with criticizing that Asian countries would open major events of 21st century; World Cup (Korea-Japan in 2002), Expo (Aichi of Japan in 2005), Olympic (Beijing of China in 2008).

China also strongly expressed to induce the EXPO in Shanghai having transformed into Asian Manhattan. President JIANG Zemin tried to induce the EXPO by himself when BIE Investigation Committee visited in March. China also advertised of two pages on European Paper of International Tribune Herald about it at 1st of July.

Paris〓Reporter, Park Je Kyun < phark@donga.com>

Moscow〓Reporter, Kim Kee Hyun < kimkihy@donga.com>

The World EXPO opened every five years called is one of best international three events with Olympic and World Cup.

Even if the public interesting for the EXPO is lower than Olympic and World Cup, the influence on the economy is much beyond Olympic and World Cup. Until now only five countries have experience opening the three events; US, Japan, France, Germany and Spain.

93 Daejun EXPO was an accepted expo while 2010 EXPO is an accredited expo by BIE.

Accepted expo is characterized as medium- sized and specialized, and accredited one is large sized and comprehensive. There were 14million visitors in Daejun EXPO, but there will be 30 million visitors in Yeosu EXPO.