Busan Expo: A Stepping Stone for Economic Vitality

Our companies and business leaders are actively working to bring the 2030 Busan Expo to Korea.

Business group heads, including SK Chairman Tae-won Chey, Samsung Chairman Jae-yong Lee, and Hyundai Motor Chairman Euisun Chung, are all deeply committed. They are traveling from country to country around the world, stepping up promotional efforts. The desire to host the Expo is growing ever stronger. Public interest in the Expo is also very high.

Along with the World Cup and the Olympics, the Expo is one of the world’s three major events. If Korea hosts the Expo, it will become a country that has hosted all three of the world’s biggest global festivals, following the 1988 Seoul Olympics and the 2002 Korea-Japan World Cup. It would be the 7th country in the world and the 2nd in Asia after Japan to do so.

The Expo is also highly significant from the perspective of the MICE industry.

Corporate meetings, international conferences, and exhibitions have now grown into an industry in their own right. Seoul is already the city with the 3rd-highest number of international conferences in the world. KINTEX in Ilsan and BEXCO in Busan have also firmly established themselves as convention centers and are developing further as hubs where businesses gather.

The Expo has far greater economic effects than the World Cup or the Olympics.

Because those two are sporting events, their effects are largely limited to promoting a country and enhancing its image. The Expo, by contrast, is truly an international festival in the economic sphere, so its effects in terms of economic exchange, promotion, trade, and commercial revitalization are extremely large.

Most countries that have hosted the Expo so far have been advanced economies. It was first held in London, the British city that led the Industrial Revolution, in 1851, and has since been hosted by Paris and other European cities, as well as the United States, Australia, Canada, and Japan. More recently, Shanghai in 2010 and Dubai in 2020 hosted the Expo after Japan. Osaka is scheduled to host it again in 2025, following its 1970 Expo.

The recognized expos previously held twice in Korea, in Daejeon and Yeosu, were relatively small-scale events centered on specific themes, in which the host country built exhibition halls and provided them to participating countries.

By contrast, the World Expo that Korea seeks to host in 2030 is an event in which the host country provides only the site, while participating countries build their own pavilions at their own expense. Its theme is also far broader.

Our economy has been experiencing a decline in growth rates over a long period. The corporate sector has been losing vitality even more sharply. The global companies that lead our economy grew through trade in the world market and became world-class enterprises.

But as the business environment has worsened, we are seeing fewer new companies emerge. The corporate economy needs to revive once again.

The Busan Expo can become a stepping stone for revitalizing the corporate economy. If companies and citizens from around the world gather in Korea for a festival centered on the economy, and our people join in, it can create an opportunity to reinvigorate the corporate economy.

For that to happen, public support and broad sympathy for the corporate economy must come first so that businesses can regain vitality. At the same time, efforts must be made to improve institutions in a more business-friendly direction.

Sung-no Choi, President, Center for Free Enterprise (CFE)

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Original title: 부산엑스포는 경제 활성화 디딤돌

Author: Sung-no Choi

Date: 2022-11-08

Source: https://www.cfe.org/bbs/bbsDetail.php?cid=press&idx=25064