Osaka Expo Opens For 6-month Event Focused On Sustainable Society

Umer Jamshaid Published April 13, 2025 | 07:00 PM

(UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 13th Apr, 2025) OSAKA, Japan, 13th April, 2025 (WAM) – The World Exposition in Osaka opened Sunday to the public, with organisers hoping the six-month event focused on designing a sustainable future will boost the domestic economy despite delayed preparations, according to Kyodo news.

The expo will continue until October 13 on Yumeshima, an artificial island in Osaka Bay, with 158 countries and regions participating. Some 28.2 million people are projected to visit. The first world expo in Japan since the 2005 event in Aichi Prefecture, it is themed on "life" and ways to create a sustainable future society.

Its major exhibits are encircled by the Grand Ring, which has a circumference of 2 kilometers and is recognised by Guinness World Records as the world's largest wooden architectural structure.

At the Japan Pavilion, main exhibits include a "Mars rock" discovered by a Japanese research team in Antarctica in 2000, while the Osaka prefectural and city government's health-themed pavilion features sheets of heart muscle made from iPS cells, a type of stem cells which can grow into any type of body tissue.

The government estimates the event will have an economic impact worth 2.92 trillion Yen ($20 billion) nationwide, based on the visitor target of 28.2 million people. On peak days, 220,000 people are projected to visit.

Japan has hosted the World Exposition twice before, most recently in Aichi Prefecture in 2005. Osaka previously held it in 1970, an event that drew more than 64 million primarily domestic visitors and came to be seen as symbolising Japan's rise as an economic power.