France lobbies for Sri Lanka’s support for Expo 2025 bid

Young ambassador for the event from Sri Lanka Ganga Harshini Mahawatta (extreme left) and Kavinsha Thathsarani (right) posing for a photograph with Paskal Lamy - former General Director of the World Trade Organisation and Interministerial delegate in Charge of the preparation of the French candidature and Isabelle Miscot - Charge d’ Affairs a.i, Embassy of France to Sri Lanka and the Maldives 

By Chathuri Dissanayake

Pascal Lamy, a former director general of the World Trade Organization, met Sri Lankan politicians and officials in a number of ministries including Finance and Tourism. 

The French proposal, which has an environmentally sustainable theme, costs significantly less than those of its competitors and offers more advantages, Lamy claimed. France expects to spend 3.5 billion on hosting the Expo in Paris, less than the cost projected to host Expo 2020 Dubai. France is competing with Japan, Azerbaijan and Russia to host Expo 2025. 

Paris is bidding to host the expo a year after staging the 2024 Summer Olympics, and Lamy said he was confident of securing international support for France’s environmentally-sustainable proposal.

France, a founding member of Universal Expo, last hosted the exhibition at the turn of the 20th Century. If France is able to win the support of the international community the country will host the event for the first time in 125 years. 

The Paris bid, initially put forward by a handful of entrepreneurs during the tenure of President Francois Hollande, has been” embraced” by his successor Emmanuel Macron, Lamy said.

With close to 40 million people expected to visit the 2025 Expo over a six-month period, France is confident of putting together the infrastructure to facilitate the visitor volume. 

“France hosts about 18 million tourists a year. We are the number one tourist destination in the world. So we have the experience. By 2025 we expect the number to go higher. So the return on investment is higher unlike in other destinations,” Lamy said in support of their bid. 

France is bidding to host Expo 2025 after hosting the 2024 Olympic Games where four million visitors are expected to visit the Olympic city during a period of two weeks. 

The French bid also offers a sustainable solution for the infrastructure in the post-exhibition period as well. Set near the new academic village for technology, the 110-hectare site for the pavilions can be converted into student spaces.  “Countries may convert their pavilions and remain at Paris-Saclay to receive students or innovative businesses from their country in order to contribute to the area’s intellectual and entrepreneurial vibrancy,” Lamy said. 

France is ready to host an event of that scale, Lamy said, as the country is expected to welcome 100 million tourists annually by 2020.

Delegates from 170 member states of the Paris-based Bureau of International Exhibitions will vote on the bids in November.

-Pix by Gitika Talukdar

Pascal Lamy presents Mangala French proposal for World Expo 2025

With France announcing its candidacy to organise the ‘World Expo 2025’, the inter-ministerial delegate for the French candidacy, Pascal Lamy, in a bid to secure Sri Lanka’s support, held talks with Minister of Finance and Media Mangala Samaraweera, on Friday (5), at the Treasury. He explained France’s environmentally sustainable proposal for World Expo 2025.