Cristina Hodgson
MALAGA will have to wait for another opportunity to host the World Expo after losing in the last round to Belgrade.
The capital of the Costa del Sol’s hopes to host the international exhibition Expo 2027 were shattered in the final round of the voting stage which took place in Paris yesterday, Wednesday June 21, in which Malaga was up against four other locations around the world to host the event.
The Serbian city beat Malaga in the final round by 81 votes to 70. Minnesota (USA) came in third, ahead of Phuket in Thailand and San Carlos de Bariloche in Argentina.
Representatives from 179 countries took part in the final vote which saw the third and final presentation of the Spanish proposal ‘The Urban Era: Towards the Sustainable City’, before the vote took place.
Following the blow to Malaga for coming second by a mere 11 points, the president of the Junta, Juanma Moreno, who had flown out to Paris together with the regional minister of economy, Carolina España, the Spanish minister of foreign affairs, José Manuel Albares and the mayor of Malaga, Francisco de la Torre, remained positive insisting that the final was lost ‘by a very small margin’ that regardless ‘we are projecting our image abroad.’
Spanish actor Antonio Banderas, who participated in earlier rounds of the Malaga proposal, also sent out a message of positivity on social media.
“Congratulations to Belgrade for being elected the headquarters of Expo2027! Here in Malaga sadness lasted a few minutes because we live in our natural joy. We keep looking to the future and we will not be able to avoid being happy!”
The three-month-long event was expected to bring in 14 million visitors and create 33,000 jobs.
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