Why Dubai will be an ideal host
IF THE CITY IS SUCCESSFUL IN ITS BID, THEN ITS ECONOMY WOULD RECEIVE AN ADDED VALUE BOOST OF ROUGHLY € 17.7B
The UAE’s organising committee has left no stone unturned in its endeavour to bring their bid for Expo 2020 as close to perfection as possible. Every facet of UAE society, culture and industry has been highlighted to illustrate that Dubai would make the ideal host seven years from now.
Commenting on Dubai’s bid was Vicente Gonzalez Loscertales, Secretary General of the BIE, “We have assessed the bid to be excellent. It is promising for the countries participating and for the host country itself,” he said. “I have seen Dubai having a wonderful active campaign. They have been meeting all the member states and they have done very well, been very efficient and active. I am convinced that what Dubai has promised to do will be done in a superlative way.”
Loscertales also put the past two years of campaigning into perspective, “We have had very active campaigns by candidates who have been visiting countries, explaining their projects and offering other nations different possibilities of participation in Expo 2020. Till now, the most decisive factor is the recognition of the importance of the project.
“Secondly, the recognition of the partnership which can be established between different candidates and the future in economic, political, cultural, bilateral relations in general is taken into account.
Most decisive factor
“Then the most decisive factor is what can we do together and what can we do together today. This is more important than the future. The hope of having strong cooperation till the years to come and also the hope of having many more successful Expos, and the guarantees a country can give of having a good Expo, is what determines an ideal host.”
The bid for Expo 2020 reflects Dubai’s ambitions for the future, and it is sending out this message to the rest of the world. The theme of its presentation is: Connecting Minds Creating the Future.
“All our future plans fall into place with Expo 2020,” said Shaikh Ahmad Bin Saeed Al Maktoum, President of Dubai Civil Aviation and Chairman and CEO of Emirates Group and Chairman of the Expo 2020 bid. “The Expo is not just for the UAE and its neighbouring regions. It is also for at least two billion people who live in this extensive region. It is for everybody.
“We feel confident about the process and what the entire team has done. But we will have to wait ... to see what transpires. At the end of the day it is a political decision.”
Loscertales said the decision will be based on the country that can best convince the other member states that they are best qualified for to the host.
“We are 168 member states,” he said. ‘ We will have at least 165 countries voting on the day and that means it is down to the will of these countries. It is down to Dubai’s capacity to convince them that they should win in the tussle between one country and another. There are many factors that could swing the course of voting: neighbourhoods, cultural identity is also what makes one country vote for another. But the usual pat- tern is that countries don’t just go with their neighbours, but with the trend established by other nations as well.”
Economic boost
If Dubai is successful in its bid then its economy would receive an added value boost of roughly € 17.7 billion ( Dh87.95 billion). More exciting, however, will be the innumerable opportunities that will be created, boosting the growth of tourism and logistics in the UAE and Middle East. An estimated total funding of € 6.5 billion ( Dh32.30 billion) has been earmarked for the event with € 5.2 billion ( Dh25.84 billion) anticipated as capital investment for the Expo’s infrastructure environment.
An estimated 25 million visitors are set to arrive in the country as a result of a successful bid, thus influencing tourism, trade, infrastructure and investment. A total of 270,000 jobs will also be conceived to cater to an expanded economy. Plans have been put into place not just to capitalise on the sudden boost that an Expo win would bring to the country economically, but also to carry on regardless of a win, or a loss.
As Sultan Bin Saeed Al Mansouri, UAE Minister of Economy, said: “The i nfrastructure that we had committed to developing around the Expo site is already there. Cities like Dubai and Abu Dhabi will continue to pursue developmental plans regardless. An Expo win or a loss will not stop us. On the contrary, it will make us resolute to be more creative, seek new ideas and projects and look for new and varied challenges i n the future.”
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