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Global Mind workshop to discuss Yekaterinburg’s EXPO-2020 bid

Over 100 delegates from member countries of the Bureau of International Expositions (BIE) will take part in the symposium

Photo ITAR-TASS

Photo ITAR-TASS

YEKATERINBURG, July 11 (Itar-Tass) - An international symposium Global Mind opens on Thursday in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg, which is vying to host the world universal exposition EXPO-2020.

According to the press service of the EXPO-2020 bidding committee, more than 100 delegates from member countries of the Bureau of International Expositions (BIE), including Great Britain, Mexico, Senegal, Bangladesh, the United States, France, Portugal and others, will take part in the symposium.

A key goal of the symposium is to demonstrate the international significance of the exhibition theme offered by Russia. The topic of the symposium will be Global Mind: the Future of Globalization and Its Impact on Our World.

The program includes a report on the impacts, threats and challenges of globalization to be delivered by the 2006 Nobel Prize winner, Muhammad Yunus, a report on the topic “Business and political cooperation in conditions of the global economy” by France’s former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, panel sessions Globalization and Innovations and Globalization and the Quality of Life. Among the speakers will be former captain of the Russian football team Alexei Smertin, journalists from Great Britain and France, artists.

“Yekaterinburg is the first among the contender cities to host such a symposium, which is a requirement of the Bureau of International Expositions,” a spokesman for the bidding committee said. “A key event will be the participation of foreign delegations in the international exhibition Innoprom-2013 which opens here on Thursday.”

According to Sverdlovsk region governor Yevgeny Kuivashev, it is a perfect chance to demonstrate to foreign guests from member countries of the Bureau of International Expositions that Yekaterinburg has a colossal experience in organizing and holding large-scale exhibitions.

If Yekaterinburg wins the EXPO-2020 bid, it will be Russia’s first world fair. The initiative to host an EXPO exhibition in Yekaterinburg came from the Russian ministry of industry and trade after Russia’s successful participation in EXPO-2010 in Shanghai.

The host of the EXPO-2020 exhibition will be chosen in the voting at the 154th session of the Bureau of International Expositions in Paris in November 2013. Along with Russia’s Yekaterinburg, contenders are Brazil’s Sao Paolo, the United Arab Emirates’ Dubai, and Turkey’s Izmir.

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