Saudi Arabia hosts the 2030 World Expo, in victory for the Crown Prince

Saudi Arabia convincingly won the tender to host the 2030 World Expo on Tuesday, marking a triumph for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto ruler, in his bid to change the authoritarian country’s international image. and his own – to reshape.

The vote was conducted by the Bureau International des Expositions in Paris, which has 182 member states, and the 165 delegates present cast secret ballots. Saudi Arabia won 119 of the 165 votes, easily beating South Korea and Italy.

The victory gives Saudi Arabia a chance to step into the global spotlight in the year that the crown prince’s plan to diversify the kingdom’s oil-dependent economy, ‘Vision 2030’, is due to be completed.

The victory also shows how he has once again been able to wield the kingdom’s power, money and influence to counter efforts to isolate Saudi Arabia over human rights issues and attempts to stereotype it as a desert backwater with little to offer the world to overcome. He has sought to position himself as an indispensable world leader and the kingdom as a major destination for business and tourism.

“The World Expo has great appeal to the Saudi leadership,” said Kristin Diwan, a senior researcher at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. “The Saudis are determined to organize a major coming out party in 2030 to demonstrate the success of their vision.”

The three countries competing for the 2030 event had organized glittering events in recent months to court international delegates. But none seemed as opulent as Saudi Arabia’s. For example, delegates were treated to a dinner of blue lobster tail and ossetra caviar at an event near Paris this month. Politics.

Before its bid, Saudi Arabia unveiled a comprehensive offer campaign highlighting the futuristic mega-projects that Prince Mohammed wanted to build across the country by 2030, including a giant cube-shaped structure that would house promotional videos call it ‘a gate to another world’.

The presentation in Paris on Tuesday included a video in which Portuguese football star Cristiano Ronaldo – who the kingdom recently recruited to play in its national league, in a deal reportedly worth around $200 million – said: “My family and I , we are having a great time here in Saudi Arabia.”

The video also described the kingdom as a “beacon of progress and sustainability” and a young, vibrant nation experiencing unprecedented change. “Our youth are leading the change,” Princess Haifa Al Mogrin, the kingdom’s UNESCO delegate, said this in the presentation.

Before the World Expo in Riyadh, another will take place in Osaka, Japan in 2025. The most recent expo was held in Dubai, a beautiful emirate on the Persian Gulf that Prince Mohammed owns both competed with and imitated. Winning the vote in the French capital – where the Eiffel Tower was built for the 1889 Exhibition – represents an opportunity for countries to attract global attention, millions of people, money and prestige, and to create jobs and infrastructure.

Saudi Arabia’s victory adds to the kingdom’s success in securing major global events such as the 2029 Asian Winter Games and the 2034 World Cup. It has invested lavishly to bring some of the world’s biggest players to the football league and lure the golf circuit, which then merged with the PGA Tour.

The kingdom, which has announced its ambitions for the expo on billboards across Paris, has said it will spend $7.8 billion to host the event. In June, Prince Mohammed himself attended a reception in the French capital to promote the Saudi bid.

A festive light show lit up the Saudi capital Riyadh on Tuesday evening, with fireworks being shot from the side of a skyscraper.

Over the past year, the kingdom has also sought deeper relationships with a number of states it previously had little or no ties with, exploring new investments and establishing diplomatic ties.

This month Prince Mohammed organized one meeting of Caribbean leaders for the first time. In May, Colombia expressed official support for the kingdom’s Expo bid during a visit by a Saudi delegation that pledged to open an embassy in the country. And President Emmanuel Macron of France expressed early support for Saudi Arabia’s candidacy.

The Saudi bid had its detractors. Last week, 15 rights groups signed an open letter to members of the Bureau International des Expositions, urging them not to vote for Saudi Arabia because of its “history of violating basic human rights and curbing freedoms.”

Under Prince Mohammed, the conservative Islamic kingdom has witnessed a dramatic loosening of social restrictions, including for women, alongside a political crackdown on dissent that has deepened over the years.

Mayor Roberto Gualtieri of Rome – the city was Italy’s candidate to host the event – warned last week that a Saudi victory could mean a “grim, oppressive and dark” exhibition.

Early in his term, President Biden sought to isolate Saudi Arabia and Prince Mohammed over human rights abuses such as those in the war in Yemen and the murder of exiled Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi.

But time and time again, the kingdom’s oil wealth and geopolitical influence have made it impossible to ignore. Mr. Biden visited last year, in part to enlist the prince’s help in keeping oil prices low after Russia invaded Ukraine.

In Paris, Italy began its presentation to voters at the fair with speeches from a British film producer and Italian actress Sabrina Impacciatore, best known for her role in the HBO series “White Lotus.” It also tapped actor Russell Crowe, who starred in “Gladiator,” as an ambassador for its bid. But Italy finished a distant third, with 17 votes.

Some Italians took to social media to express their disappointment. Claudio Cerasa, editor of the newspaper Il Foglio, wrote on X“The vote was an “international exhibition of Rome’s (and Italy’s) ability to matter in the world (and in Europe).”

South Korea, which finished second with 29 votes, had also gone all out to promote its bid to host its first World Expo in the port city of Busan, appointing K-pop band BTS as its ambassador, along with celebrities such as “Squid Game” star Lee Jung-jae.

The expo competition was not immune to the consequences of the Israeli-Hamas conflict and the war in Ukraine.

On Tuesday, Israeli news media reported that Israel – which has long wanted to establish formal ties with Saudi Arabia – had withdrawn its support for the Saudi bid due to Riyadh’s opposition to the war in Gaza. But Lior Haiat, a spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry, dismissed the report, saying that while the country supported Italy, it had never backed Saudi Arabia.

And during the presentations for the 2025 expo, Russia’s representative announced that Moscow would not participate in the Osaka expo after withdrawing its application to host the 2030 event due to the “biased” attitude of member states.

Emma Bubola reported from London, and Vivian Nereim from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. John Yoon contributed reporting from Seoul.