President Lee Myung-bak hosted lunch Friday for organizers, volunteers and other contributors to the Yeosu Expo, praising their efforts to make the fair a success and calling for continued development of the southern region.
The three-month exposition came to a conclusion earlier this month after drawing a total of 8.2 million visitors from home and abroad.
It was the first Paris-based Bureau of International Exhibitions approved event hosted by Korea since the 1993 Daejeon Expo.
"It is very meaningful that the small city of Yeosu on the south coast successfully hosted the expo. The point is that it was held in a provincial city, not a large city," Lee said during the lunch attended by about 240 people, according to Lee Kil-ho, a presidential spokesperson.
Railways, roads and other infrastructure have been beefed up around the region as part of preparations for the event, and making the best use of them so as to further develop the southern coastal region would be a second success of the Yeosu Expo, Lee said. (Yonhap)