The city of Milan is gearing up to host one of the biggest exhibitions in Europe known as the Expo 2015 (www.expo2015.org/en) from 1st May to October 31st 2015. This is a major international event with great social, cultural, economic, and political relevance. With over 130 events, the Expo 2015 will be an opportunity to explore life in the streets, neighborhoods, and suburbs of not only Milan but other key cities in Italy. Citizens, event organizers, and tourists will have an opportunity to sample the high-quality scientific, economic, and cultural events Italy has to offer.
The Expo has had its share of bad publicity: it recently came under international spotlight for acts of bribery involving the expo’s organizing leaders responsible for managing the huge amount of contract funds. Several people were arrested for bribery, contract rigging, and conspiracy charges. The whole mess was also politically related since some of those arrested actually belonged to the main political parties.
However, despite these sad events, what exactly is the Expo Milano 2015 and what does it represent for Italy?
The Expo 2015 is an innovative project organized by the City of Milan and the Italian Chamber of Commerce as an economic driver for the country’s creativity, natural attractions, and the Italians’ innovative spirit. It will be a chance to build on and showcase the rich cultural, educational, and entertainment industries in Italy. International visitors will be treated to all the great things the city of Milan is well known for from fashion, cuisine, wine, sports, and culture both inside and outside the exhibition site.
The Expo 2015 will be of great importance to Italy. It will be a great opportunity for establishing greater collaboration between local Italian businesses with other companies around the world. The exhibition will also be important in promoting the booming tourism industry in Italy. Foreign travelers are expected to arrive in Italy during this period in great numbers. As expected, the visitors will surely fall in love with all the beauty and major attractions Milan and Italy as a whole have to offer.
Property market players in Italy will have an opportunity to interact with potential buyers and investors from other parts of the world interested in italian properties. This will be important in laying the groundwork for greater collaborations in future.
The expo will have an Italian Pavilion which will host a major “Show on Regions of Italy” where every individual region of Italy will be promoting its key attractions to thousands of international visitors. Every region will have an opportunity to showcase its business opportunities in diverse sectors to international actors. This will be a great opportunity to promote tourism in Italy as a whole.
Notably, the expo will also be important in promoting the booming real estate industry in Italy especially in the Milan and Lombardy regions. These are the key regions hosting the event and which are currently equipped with cutting edge infrastructure ready to accommodate thousands of visitors expected to attend the expo from all parts of the world. For example, the city of Milan has seen renewed infrastructural works which had been stranded for years thanks to hosting the expo and Italy as a whole are specifically expected to benefit from the Expo 2015 considerably in promoting investor confidence in the numerous business, cultural, and tourism opportunities the country has to offer.
The event will be of paramount importance to the country which is why the Italian Premier Matteo Renzi is engaging personally to ensure its success in all aspects from management to all forms of procurement procedures. The Prime Minister has even engaged the services of Raffaele Cantone, the Chairman of the National Anti-Corruption Authority, in the organization of the Expo to ensure that all operations run smoothly without undue interference by corrupt individuals.
The 2015 exhibition will be organized under the central theme of “Feeding the planet, Energy for life” as a way of addressing the planet’s nutritional problems and conservation of natural resources. The theme is designed to open up a major dialogue among international players on different challenges the world faces in food production and conservation of natural resources. Some of the key issues to be discussed include the possibility of guaranteeing water and food in all corners of the planet, how to increase food security for all the entire world population, and the possibility of coming up with better solutions to preserving the world’s biodiversity. The theme of the Expo provides participants with an opportunity to pose open ended questions and tools to answer these questions rather than impose one-way solutions to the problems. The dialogue will take place on a daily basis in different settings such as key events, conferences, meetings, shows, and discussion groups throughout the Expo’s duration.
As a global event, the Milano Expo 2015 will have all sorts of participants from all corners of the world. However, according to the rules of the Bureau International des Exposition (BIE), there will be two categories of participants categorized as either Official or Non-Official. At the moment, Official participants include over 144 countries and 3 International Organizations who have so far accepted invitations sent by the event organizers. Non-Official participants will include representatives of all the other groups and institutions recognized by the organizers. All the members of the United Nations’ bodies, Non-Governmental Organizations, and Corporate entities are recognized as key stakeholders in the great food and resources debate which is why they have formally been invited by the Italian government.
