Preparations to host Expo 2020 are well underway in Dubai, with organisers expecting to finish construction works a year ahead of the international event’s official launch, scheduled for October 2020.
Cyprus is among the 190 countries which committed to participate in the event, that takes place every five years in a different location. So far 118 of them have publicly announced that they will do so and as CNA learns, discussion between Cypriot authorities and organisers continue, ahead of Nicosia’s final decisions.
Overall, organisers expect to attract 25 million visits between October 20, 2020 and April 10, 2021, and 70% of them are projected to come from outside the United Arab Emirates.
Najib Al Ali, the Executive Director of the Expo 2020 Dubai Office, welcomed at the Expo visitor’s centre on Monday a delegation of news agencies from various countries, including CNA, updating them on the overall progress. The visit was organised on the sidelines of the 7th World Government Summit, where CNA and several news agencies signed a Memorandum of Understanding and the “News Agencies Tolerance Charter” with the Emirates News Agency (WAM).
The Expo aims to welcome the world in the UAE under the umbrella of cooperation and tolerance, said Ali, adding that tolerance and openness are the country’s themes.
Dubai, which won the bid in 2013, is the first destination in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia to host a World Expo. The event, under the slogan “Connecting Minds, Creating the Future” will feature sustainability, mobility and opportunity as its subthemes.
(Cyprus News Agency)
