US

California bids to host 2020 World Expo

By Wang Zhenghua (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-09-13 08:15

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (left) is briefed on Sunday as he rides a bullet train departing from Hongqiao Railway Station in Shanghai. Eugene Hoshiko / AP Photo

SHANGHAI - The US state of California is looking forward to working with China to learn how to put on a successful World Expo, as it prepares to file its bid to host the 2020 World Expo, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said on Sunday.

Prior to his tour of Expo 2010 Shanghai during his visit to China, the governor announced that California would bid to host the 2020 Expo in Silicon Valley, confounding observers after the world's largest economy had difficulty finding funding for its pavilion at this year's event.

"Shanghai has demonstrated that when you host the World Expo, the world comes to you and I want the world to come to California," Schwarzenegger said.

Since 1851, when the first World Expo was held in London, the event has been regarded as the Olympic Games of the economic, scientific and industrial world, with the potential to generate hundreds of thousands of jobs for host regions.

As its legacy, Expo 2010 Shanghai will leave the city an additional $40 billion of roads, subway lines and airport terminals, with a net economic impact of $11.6 billion, according to official estimates.

The governor, an Austrian-American bodybuilder who became famous for starring in Hollywood action films like The Terminator, is interested in the Expo's ability to create jobs and increase tourism.

Bay Area Council President and CEO Jim Wunderman zeroed in on the Expo as a tremendous branding opportunity, referring to it as "the Expo effect".

The US has previously hosted 12 World Expos. Its last was in New Orleans in 1984.

Schwarzenegger posed for photos on board a high-speed train in Shanghai on Sunday, after spending Saturday, the first day of his weeklong trade mission, hobnobbing in Hangzhou with Jack Ma, founder of the Internet trading giant Alibaba.com, and other Chinese entrepreneurs.

China Daily