Busan prepares for World Expo 2030 as host vote nears

Busan is in the running to host World Expo 2030, with rivals including Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and Rome, Italy. The city plans to transform its North Port area into a cultural complex for the event.

Busan's North Port, the proposed venue for the 2030 World Expo [YONHAP]

BUSAN — If you step off the train at Busan Station, you'll find the surrounding area bustling with construction as the neighborhood vies to host World Expo 2030.

“The area is two to three times bigger than the respective locations held in 2015 World Expo for Italy’s Milano, or the next World Expo, in 2025, which will take place in Japan’s Osaka,” said Lee Seung-woo, head of Busan Metropolitan City's overseas expo outreach division, on a boat ride Monday, where city officials showed journalists the ways in which North Port will transform.

Less than a month remains before the winning city is announced on Nov. 28. The 179 member countries of the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE) will decide the final host. Busan's rival contenders include Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh and Italy’s Rome.

North Port was once Busan's main port, but handed its functions to Busan New Port in Changwon, South Gyeongsang, when the latter opened in 2006. It then largely sat idle until the southern port city revitalized it in an environmentally friendly urban regeneration project in 2008. Busan envisions a World Expo to be held between May 1 and Oct. 31, 2030, for 184 days, with an estimated 34.8 million visitors.

The Expo will be a two-stage project. Stage One, for which construction is currently under way, will turn part of the port into a cultural complex consisting of an opera house for musical events, a marine sport center for sports events and a convention center for the maritime industry.

“The base infrastructure for the first stage project will be complete construction within this year,” Lee said. “The completion date for each facility differs.”

The opera house, which is designed to resemble a shell with a pearl, appeared, from a distance, to be prominently taking shape. It will be completed by 2027, and will be able to seat 1,800 visitors.

The second stage will involve the completion of Oceanix Busan, the world's first floating city, in 2030, in line with the World Expo. The floating community will occupy an area of 60,000 square meters and will accommodate up to 300 residents in three hexagonal modules as well as 100,000 visitors. It will be a flood-proof infrastructure that rises with the sea, and will produce its own food, energy and freshwater with fully integrated, zero-waste, closed-loop systems.

UN-Habitat selected Busan for the mega-scale project in 2021 over such hefty rivals as New York, Abu Dhabi, and Singapore.

The opera house under construction seen from the distance in Busan’s North Port [LEE JAE-LIM]

“Oceanix Busan is projected to function similar to Some Sevit [the Sevit islets in Seocho District, southern Seoul],” Lee said.

The second stage of development is expected to begin after World Expo 2030's host country is announced.

“Regardless of the outcome [of the vote], the city plans to finish the construction of its urban renovation accordingly to what we had initially announced,” Lee added.

The project proposes using the North Port area as the Expo site and returning the infrastructure to businesses and citizens after the event.

“Twenty thirty is the year which marks the 180th anniversary of the establishment of the World Expo and also marks the centennial of the BIE,” Lee said. “During the six-month period when the Expo is hosted, Busan will be themed after each member of 179 BIE General Assembly for each week to promote the countries’ traditions and culture to the world.”

BY LEE JAE-LIM [lee.jaelim@joongang.co.kr]