Why should Busan host World Expo 2030?

A visitor takes a picture over the North Port of Busan, Saturday, which is now undergoing redevelopment. The site will be the central venue for World Expo 2030 if Busan wins the hosting rights. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul

North Port under rigorous makeover to bind people, venues with new technologies

By Ko Dong-hwan

BUSAN ― A skywalk from Busan Train Station runs some 500 meters, leading to a panoramic view of the North Port and its vicinity that is undergoing a large-scale redevelopment. The huge old port, the country's largest, is now filled with the clamor of construction rigs, crane towers and passing vehicles clattering over temporary steel-carpet roads laid out around the location, which isn't a pretty sight. It is rather reminiscent of a modern seaside version of the Wild Wild West.

At the end of the skywalk is the city's International Passenger Terminal, the port authority for cruise ships arriving and departing with tourists. Inside the terminal on the fifth floor is a pavilion exhibiting how the port and surrounding area will look like after the rigorous, ongoing facelift. Ships now inundating the port waters will be relocated. Existing warehouses and old factories will become hip cultural exhibiting pavilions, sleek office spaces and recreational service depots ― including Busan Opera House, scheduled for opening in 2026. The 3.4-square-kilometer site will literally shed "wild" and instead wear a new community-friendly look in the latest fashion.

Fishing vessels and other commercial ships crowd a section of the North Port in Busan, Friday. Following the port's redevelopment, the ships will be relocated to another nearby docking facility to make the North Port friendlier to tourists and visitors. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul

"It's going to be quite a change," Jeon Soo-ji, who gave a guided tour inside the pavilion, admitted to The Korea Times. "With the ships relocated to other docking facilities, the port will welcome visitors for more light-hearted activities. It'll be a friendly seaside space for all."

A Korean barbeque chef in her late 60s who has worked in the city's Busanjin District for the past 18 years told The Korea Times she owns one of the skyscraper apartment buildings facing the port. She said the ships at the port will be moved to Dadaepo Port some 15 kilometers south of the North Port ― something Jeon said she didn't know about.

"The construction behind the port has been going on for almost a decade. They are landfilling the waters to make extra ground," she said. "Of course I'm looking forward to seeing the Expo here in Busan. Many units of the apartments by the port have been rented out to foreigners by Korean owners."

The new port area will be the centerpiece for the World Expo 2030 if it's held in Busan. It's going to showcase all the latest technologies and the city government's initiative to reach out to the world more than ever before. With the mega-event also celebrating the 100th anniversary of the onset of the Paris-based Bureau International des Expositions (BIE) that oversees all Expo events, the city is promoting itself over other candidate cities ― Riyadh, Rome and Odesa ― as a better location for the organization to celebrate its legacy.

A graphic aerial image of the North Port following its redevelopment shows the port with waterside parks, cultural exhibition pavilions, clusters of business spaces and wharves that can accommodate mega-size cruise ships. Courtesy of Busan Metropolitan City

"The mayor said hosting the Expo will literally be the key to unlocking the future for Busan," Na Yun-bin, spokesperson for Busan Mayor Park Heong-joon, told The Korea Times. "Some of the officials in our city government are now in a high mood, talking as if the city has already won the bid (laughter). Of course the port redevelopment will go on with or without the Expo. But without it, the project will lag way behind its timeline. So will the economic boom the whole city is waiting for."

New technologies

One of the pillars behind Busan's no-turning-back charge to host the World Expo 2030 is collective technologies the city and the country are proposing as solutions to humanity's imminent problems. To reduce greenhouse gas emissions, make more people aware of pressing global issues and introduce alternatives for human labor to improve safety, new technologies are inevitable and will continue to be so. An Expo is where the entire world gathers to witness solutions that will possibly save their future.

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The Expo in Busan will take place on double tracks. While the new North Port and other tourism hotspots across the city will draw visitors in person, the event's metaverse will simultaneously guide visitors through the port online. This is the first time a World Expo will be jointly centered in cyberspace as well as a physical space in the BIE's history.

Nightscape of North Port in Busan in 2018 / Courtesy of Busan Metropolitan City

It means anyone anywhere in the world can join the Expo online. All the exhibitions and pavilions erected by participating countries throughout the port will be exactly replicated in the virtual space. The initiative purports to prove how this breakthrough can bring the world together without physical limitations.

The city will also promote all the latest eco-friendly technologies before participating guests, showing how mankind can spar with the imminent climate crisis by committing to the sector. It's the city government's goal to host a carbon-neutral Expo. Hydrogen and electric vehicles will run throughout the Expo venues and power generated from renewable energy-based resources will keep the pavilions bright and cozy. The Expo will showcase the "Net-Zero Marine Garden," a project venue that pushes itself as another possible solution to keep carbon emissions low and with a more creative outcome.

The Expo will also provide for visitors' convenience in ways never attempted before. Artificial intelligent (AI) avatars for guests will queue in lineups instead of them, drones will deliver packages and parcels, and personal AI-planners will help to schedule which Expo venues to visit in order. The Expo will show that tech-savvy experiences are not restricted to during the event, but are for everyday life in all parts of the world in the near future.

A UAM (urban air mobility) simulator is installed inside the International Passenger Terminal at the North Port Expo venue in Busan, Friday. An Enquiry Mission from the Bureau International des Expositions is expected to try the simulator to view the Expo venue across the port in virtual reality. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul

Egalitarian campaign

What the country's Expo preparation committee and Busan Metropolitan City agreed on was not to make World Expo 2030 a self-indulgent celebration for just a few advanced countries. What they instead decided to do was to unveil an Expo that reaches out to all parts of the world, including developing countries.

To encourage struggling countries, the city will subsidize them to reduce the financial burden in joining the Expo or build on-site pavilions. Participating countries can also get technological takeaways from advanced countries and discover opportunities for business entrepreneurships at the Startup Village inside the new North Port.

"There will be a record number of developing countries participating in our Expo if we get to host it," an official from Prime Minister's Office under Prime Minister Han Duck-soo said. "Ahead of the event's opening (in May 2030), we will be checking critical needs for each developing country to join the Expo and provide these to them. It's Busan's bid to encourage vulnerable states to rise together with the hosting city."

Ruling People Power Party Chairman Rep. Kim Gi-hyeon, third from left, and Busan Mayor Park Heong-joon, third from right, participate in a meeting with Busan-based party members at the Busan Metropolitan Council office, Friday. The participants hold banners that read "Busan's World Expo 2030 hosting bid ― Let's do it" in Busan's local vernacular. Yonhap

The Expo wouldn't be complete without visitors and dignitaries watching K-pop concerts and other hip Korean cultural content right where they originated. K-Culture World Cruise Tour that departs North Port and other gigs or exhibitions happening at local venues in the city will be arranged so that foreign participants can feel the vibe that disregards ethnicity and national borders.

"K-content is another strategy we have in store to bring all the guests together," the official from Prime Minister's Office said. "A broad range of cultural exchanges will be happening here."

To commemorate the BIE's centennial, the city will reserve one of the port's old venues to transform it into a new BIE asset to preserve the organization's history. The North Port Silo, a large-scale storage facility for local agricultural crops inside the port, will be renovated into the Expo Big Data Silo. An archive for the Expo's metaverse will also be preserved at the same site. Unlike previous World Expos that tried to reach closer to the future as if nothing else mattered, the World Expo 2030 in Busan will create time and space to keep the past alive and inspire the present.

"It's going to be a platform where people from all over the world will reckon with the most imminent problems humanity faces right now, especially during this time of great transformation for civilization," Mayor Park told The Korea Times. "It's also going to be a platform where we will all gather and come up with ways to prosper altogether. Hosting World Expo 2030 successfully will establish Korea as a globally pivotal state that will lead the way for a great transformation and co-prosperity for mankind. Busan is ready."