Peter Wilson

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Monday 26 October, 2009

Today we have a guest blog from Carma Elliot, our Consul General in Shanghai:

Carma Elliot Expo fever has definitely hit Shanghai, with a gathering last month in the city of over 800 senior officials from around the world, charged with delivering the largest Expo the world has ever seen. Among them, Ian McCartney MP, the UK's Commissioner-General for Expo.

It's just under 200 days until the start of the Shanghai World Expo. The Expo mascot, Hai Bao (or "sea baby") pops up everywhere, in official gifts handed out by Shanghai's mayor and party secretary. Here he is:

Habao, the EXpo mascot, (Getty Images)

Taking place over 6 months from May to October 2010, and with over 300 official participants (countries, cities and international organisations), this is the largest Expo the world has ever seen. An area of over 5 square kilometres straddling the Huangpu river which lies at the heart of Shanghai is ready to host over 70 million visitors over 184 days.

The Chinese government has invested over $5 billion in the Expo site alone; and another $45 billion in infrastructure projects across the city. This investment, almost double that in the Beijing Olympics last year, is preparing Shanghai for its own place on the world stage next year. This Expo is particularly important to the UK, falling half way between the last and the next Olympics, in London in 2012.

For the UK, Thomas Heatherwick has designed a unique, sculptural pavilion: a six-storey high wooden structure, pierced by 60,000 acrylic rods. It is a bold statement of the UK's ambition to showcase the British nation's creativity and innovation to a vast audience.

Design of the British Pavilion

The team placed the first of these rods in the pavilion structure on 20 October, with the sun shining down to mark the occasion.

Placing the first spike (Carma is in a red jacket, on the right)

The pavilion will be a focal point for arts and cultural activities on the site, to amuse and entertain the 40,000 or so visitors expected at the UK site every day. That's anything up to 5 million visitors over the 6 months: that's more people than pass through Heathrow's busiest terminal every day. Following their visit, they will be directed to find out more information from the UK Expo website (which will go live in mid November) and a programme of events which will take place at the Expo park, across Shanghai and throughout China.

The overall theme of the Expo, "Better City, Better Life", speaks of the challenges and opportunities for people across the globe, as urbansiation and rapid social change transform our understanding of our environment and social landscapes. With so many participants, Expos can be competitive, and particularly in China, with everybody vying to secure attention in the world's soon to be second biggest economy.

For the UK Expo team (divided virtually between London and Shanghai) putting together the UK's presence at Expo is an enormous challenge, but full of opportunity too. Last week, for example, we took the time to brainstorm how to secure at least some of the UK celebrities which the Chinese public will expect to see over that six months. And we are looking forward to working with our Chinese partners to deliver an excellent programme at Shanghai Expo!