Milan Expo targets Asia

Italy is looking to the 2015 Milan Expo as a potential short-cut out of its economic woes.

The six-month exposition will be held the European city famous for its fashion from May 1 to Oct. 31 in 2015. Korea officially became the 62nd country on Friday to sign an official agreement to take part in the event.

“Our goal is to attract about 1 million visitors from China, and about 300,000 each from Korea and Japan,” said Giuseppe Sala, commissioner of the Expo Milan 2015 Organization Committee, in an interview with The Korea Herald. “In total, we target about 20 million visitors.”

He stressed that to attract this number, which is at least four times more than attended the Yeosu Expo in 2012, Italy would focus on wooing spectators from as many Asian countries as possible, with Korea, Japan and China being the top three targets.

The commissioner suggested that among those 20 million visitors about 6 million to 7 million would be from abroad.

Accordingly, Korea won the sixth-largest national pavilion site among 130 participating countries. Germany won the largest, followed by China.

With its renewed focus on Asia, along with the rise in targeted visitors, Sala expressed Italy’s hopes to help bolster the economy.

The main theme of the Expo is “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life.“

“Food security is a pressing issue, and embraces all social, cultural and economic values,” Sala said.

“The world population reached 7 billion and is increasing, meaning the importance of food security will gain importance as well.”

Meanwhile, Sala emphasized that the two key strategies of the Milan Expo are agriculture and technology.

“There is a huge problem in Italy and Europe regarding jobs, but there are two sectors doing well. One is surprisingly agriculture, as shown by an increasing number of jobs related to agriculture in Italy,” he said.

“The second one is technology. Hereby, we are working to incorporate the oldest and the newest values into Expo.”

The Expo, from the Italian perspective, is a joint attempt of the state and the private sector, Sala said.

“Expo Milan will be a battlefield of ideas,” added Marta Dassu, Italian deputy minister of foreign affairs. “You have a woman president, which resonates with our first Expo to address specific gender barriers.”

The Expo Milan will hold a variety of related sub-themes as well, she said, one of which is the relationship between food and fashion.

By Chung Joo-won (joowonc@heraldcorp.com)