As part of the bidding process for the organisation of World Expo 2025, Enquiry Missions from the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE) will visit the three candidate countries – Japan, Russia, and Azerbaijan – in March and April 2018.

On 6-8 March, the first Enquiry Mission will be in Japan to assess the bid to organise Expo 2025 in Osaka. This will be followed on 2-4 April by an Enquiry Mission to Russia with regard to host Expo 2025 in the city of Ekaterinburg. Finally, on 17-19 April, an Enquiry Mission will visit Azerbaijan to assess the bid to host the Expo in the country’s capital, Baku.

The task of the Enquiry Mission is to assess the feasibility and viability of the Expo project, a necessary step for the candidature to go further in the selection process. This assessment involves detailed presentations of the bid project and exchanges with officials and key stakeholders involved in each Expo bid. Using the bid dossier as a guide, each Enquiry Mission will look into the motivations behind the Expo bid, the attractiveness of the proposed Expo theme, the proposed site and its planned re-use after the Expo, levels of local and national support for the project, expected participation, and the financial feasibility plan.

The findings of the Enquiry Missions will be discussed by the BIE’s Executive Committee in May, which then draws up a recommendation to the General Assembly based on each project’s viability and conformity to BIE regulations.

World Expos, known officially as International Registered Exhibitions, are organised every five years. They can last up to six months, and international participants can build their own pavilions on the Expo site. The themes of World Expos are designed to raise awareness of and find responses to universal challenges of our time. The most recent World Expo was held in the city of Milan, Italy, in 2015, under the theme “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life”. The next World Expo will take place in Dubai (UAE) between 20 October 2020 and 10 April 2021 under the theme “Connecting Minds, Creating the Future”.