By Canadian Press

Japan’s Osaka to host 2025 World Expo, beating Russian city

Nov 23, 2018 | 8:43 AM

PARIS — The Japanese city of Osaka will host the World Expo in 2025, after beating out cities in Russia and Azerbaijan in the race to host an event expected to draw millions of visitors and showcase the local economy and culture.

Shouts of joy in Japanese rose up in the Paris auditorium where the 170 member states of the Bureau International des Expositions voted Friday in favour of Osaka’s bid. Japan’s economy and trade minister, Hiroshige Seko, was in the room and led his compatriots in welcoming the victory.

Past world’s fairs introduced such wonders as the Eiffel Tower, the Ferris Wheel and Seattle’s Space Needle. Today’s version is aimed at finding solutions to challenges facing humanity.

Osaka proposed an expo on a man-made island on the theme of “Society 5.0” and how to leverage robotics and artificial intelligence for the public good.

World Expos, which are held every five years, can last up to six months and cost millions of dollars to host, but can help put a city on the global map by bringing in international visitors and attention. Milan hosted the last one in 2015, and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates is set to host the next one in 2020. No U.S. city has hosted a world’s fair since the 1980s.

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The Russian city of Yekaterinburg was runnerup — the second loss this week for Russia at an international organization, after the Russian candidate to be president of global police agency Interpol lost out to a South Korean rival.

The capital of the oil-rich former Soviet country of Azerbaijan, Baku, came in third.

Osaka pitched itself as the safe, reliable choice — notably because it already held the 1970 Expo, while the other cities are lesser known and would have been first-time hosts.

Leaders in Osaka, Japan’s third-largest city and the largest in western Japan, are hoping the expo will revitalize a city that has lost much of its lustre to Tokyo, the nation’s political and economic capital. They have plans to transform the site into a casino resort after the expo, though there is opposition from residents to bringing casino gambling to town.

Russian President Vladimir Putin had backed the Yekaterinburg bid via video message and a Russian singer tried to rev up the crowd with song and dance. The Russian city, on the boundary between Europe and Asia in Russia’s Ural Mountains, was one of several Russian sites that hosted World Cup matches this year.

Baku lost despite a lavish bid including a proposed venue designed to evoke the geometry of Azerbaijani carpets. The Caspian Sea city of 2.2 million has recently hosted a series of international events, including the Eurovision Song Contest and F1 Grand Prix . It is set to host some UEFA Euro 2020 matches.

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Chris den Hond in Paris, Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow and Ken Moritsugu in Beijing contributed to this report.

Angela Charlton And Alex Turnbull, The Associated Press