Top brass will try to persuade delegation to hold Expo 2010 in Wrocław

President Aleksander Kwaśniewski and other top-level politicians will meet with a delegation from the International Bureau of Exhibitions (BIE) on Monday and Tuesday to try to persuade the commission to look favorably upon Wrocław's bid to host the World's Fair in 2010. Wrocław, Poland's fourth-largest city with a population of almost 635,000, is competing with five other municipalities - Buenos Aires; Querétaro, Mexico; Moscow; Shanghai; and Yeosu, South Korea - for the rights to the 2010 fair, called Expo 2010, an international showcase of products. Poland has never hosted an international exposition since the first World's Fair was held in London in 1851. The Paris-based BIE is an organization of 88 member nations that decides on the frequency and quality of international expositions. The delegation will first hold meetings with national politicians early in the week in Warsaw mainly to receive assurance that the project has wide political support across party lines. The government had thrown its support behind Wrocław's bid at the last minute in November after a federal commission delayed its decision to back the project due to a lack of details about its financing and the absence of an agreement between state and local authorities.

"The high-ranking visits are planned to show this undertaking has the full support of the state," said Jan Krzysztof Mroziewicz, an adviser for international policy to the governor of Lower Silesia. In Warsaw, the six delegates from the BIE, including Gilles Noghes, BIE's president, Vicente Gonzales Loscertales, BIE's secretary-general, a representative from the organization's secretariat, and one representative from each of its member countries Tanzania, Spain and Switzerland, will also discuss the government's financial guarantees for the event and review security issues and visa arrangements for visitors coming to Poland during the six months that the exposition would run from April 15, 2010. Besides Kwaśniewski, the delegates will also meet with Prime Minister Leszek Miller, Deputy Prime Minister and Infrastructure Minister Marek Pol, Economy Minister Jacek Piechota, Speaker of the Sejm Marek Borowski and a representative from the Foreign Affairs Ministry.

Poland has a budget of zł. 10 million ($2.44 million) from the state and the municipality of Wrocław to spend this year on promoting its Expo 2010 candidacy. About €1.8 billion ($1.6 billion) would be needed for infrastructure upgrades and building preparations for the event should Wrocław receive hosting rights, according to Piotr Rudzki, the spokesman of Expo 2010's organization committee at the Lower Silesian voivodship office. According to the business plan for Expo 2010, the event would create about 100,000 new jobs in the Wrocław metropolitan area, Rudzki said. It also anticipates the event would draw 9.13 million individual visitors for a total of 22 million visits, who would spend €822 million ($732 million) on event tickets, lodging, meals, transportation and entertainment.