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World Expos hold a special place in international dialogue. They offer countries the opportunity to showcase their expertise, share their ideas and forge partnerships. For over a century and a half, Belgium has been an active participant in these international events, convinced that they provide unique platforms for fostering innovation, economic exchange and cooperation between peoples.
Expo 2025 Osaka, which concluded in October 2025, was fully in keeping with this tradition. It enabled Belgium to showcase its strengths in key sectors such as life sciences, biotechnology, technological innovation and sustainable design. Our pavilion served as a venue for meetings and dialogue, bringing together Belgian and Japanese companies, researchers and partners around shared ideas and projects.
But a world exhibition does not end when its doors close. The encounters it fosters, the exchanges it facilitates and the projects it inspires often form the starting point for new collaborations. Expo 2025 Osaka will thus have helped to strengthen ties between Belgium and Japan and to open up new prospects for the future.
I would like to thank all the teams and partners who contributed to the success of Belgium’s participation in this exhibition and who helped to showcase Belgium in Osaka.
We now look forward to the next World Expo, to be held in Riyadh in 2030, with the same ambition for dialogue, innovation and international cooperation.
Belgian Deputy Prime Minister & Minister of Economy and Employment
Expo 2025 Osaka, which concluded in October 2025, was fully in keeping with this tradition. It enabled Belgium to showcase its strengths in key sectors such as life sciences, biotechnology, technological innovation and sustainable design. Our pavilion served as a venue for meetings and dialogue, bringing together Belgian and Japanese companies, researchers and partners around shared ideas and projects.
But a world exhibition does not end when its doors close. The encounters it fosters, the exchanges it facilitates and the projects it inspires often form the starting point for new collaborations. Expo 2025 Osaka will thus have helped to strengthen ties between Belgium and Japan and to open up new prospects for the future.
I would like to thank all the teams and partners who contributed to the success of Belgium’s participation in this exhibition and who helped to showcase Belgium in Osaka.
We now look forward to the next World Expo, to be held in Riyadh in 2030, with the same ambition for dialogue, innovation and international cooperation.
The most wonderful thing about working on Belgium’s participation in international exhibitions is the almost permanent surprises: we get to know new people, new companies, new products, technologies and innovations, all from our own country. Every day we learn new things about our own great country and about the amazing things our businesses, scientists, entrepreneurs, craftsmen are capable of. There is so much variation in what we do, in who we meet, and we can then use all those learnings to better promote our country and its regions, communities and institutions.
Every expo is different as well. Obviously because they take place in different geographic locations, but also because they each have their own focus and themes, and of course their own culture and people who work on them. After a few years you have made friends from other countries and you see each other again in a different setting, but the participation in an expo also changes: one moment we are installing a small garden and talking to landscapers and gardeners, lots of interesting and fascinating discussions, and the next moment we are building a pavilion with multiple square meters of surface and a few floors high, and we have similar discussions with engineers, architects and craftsmen.
They are all different, but expo’s do have one thing in common: they deal in magic. It is about promoting Belgium and its regions, and at the same time about cooperating within Belgium on a common focus and message, and outside of Belgium with our colleagues from all over the world to make it a success. Because the success of an expo is the success of all the participants: we lift each other up. That is the beauty of it: the optimism and the believe it requires to make it all happen.
The Buildings Agency has always played an important role in the construction of the Belgian pavilion at international and universal exhibitions in which the Belgian government has decided to participate.
The cooperation between the Buildings Agency, as delegated project manager, and Belexpo, as project owner, has always been very good. The experience and knowledge of the Buildings Agency in the field of public procurement procedures, drawing up specifications, assessing bids and following up the work from a technical and budgetary point of view are unanimously appreciated.
Moreover, very tight deadlines are always a real challenge for both public and private sector teams. Moreover, to follow up the execution of works and meet local partners, on-site missions are necessary.
This is the 5th World Expo that I am working on. I have already worked on those in Aichi in 2005, Shanghai in 2010, Milan in 2015, Dubai 2020 and the international exhibition in Zaragoza in 2008. Each exhibition has its own characteristics, themes and challenges. For the upcoming OSAKA 2025 World Expo, one of the special features is that we are working with two separate commissions: a Design & Construction commission and another for the 'Visitor Journey' or scenography.
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A World Expo... A world in itself! For months you live and work in a closed cocoon in which only very occasional outside influences intrude. You get up and go to bed with Expo, eat (too many) chips and, in the absence of your own social circle, you turn your colleagues into a small but strongly connected family. Indeed, intense and heavy so you sometimes crave the end. And yes, you miss it wonderfully once the doors close....
I have been lucky enough to experience 2 of them. Expo 2010 Shanghai and Expo 2020 Dubai, with 10 years in between....
The most striking differences, apart from the identities of the different host countries
Expo, meanwhile, takes place largely online. While 2010 still used a lot of paper and face-to-face meetings, Dubai went fully digital.
More convenient and efficient on the one hand, a lack of human contact and less creativity on the other.
More social... the days when only the intelligentsia visited Expo are over. The internet has opened up the world to everyone and generated curiosity in everyone. All social strata now want to see and experience the world. Expo is the place for that.
The biggest difference between the two expos for me personally, was the collaboration with the team. While in Dubai we worked with almost exclusively Belgian staff, in Shanghai we opted for more local people. This was mainly based on the language in China. The daily and close contact with local people at the pavilion was a very special experience. We learned an awful lot about the local culture as a result! This also benefited our partners and sponsors.
The future? Even more than in previous editions, we need to seize all opportunities. Now you have to take full advantage of every platform provided to make a lasting impression. Social media, providing keynote speakers at Expo's content forums, cultural events that appeal to the masses ... Our country needs to put itself in the spotlight.
A great challenge awaits BelExpo in Osaka. I wish them every success!
I have been lucky enough to experience 2 of them. Expo 2010 Shanghai and Expo 2020 Dubai, with 10 years in between....
The most striking differences, apart from the identities of the different host countries
Expo, meanwhile, takes place largely online. While 2010 still used a lot of paper and face-to-face meetings, Dubai went fully digital.
More convenient and efficient on the one hand, a lack of human contact and less creativity on the other.
More social... the days when only the intelligentsia visited Expo are over. The internet has opened up the world to everyone and generated curiosity in everyone. All social strata now want to see and experience the world. Expo is the place for that.
The biggest difference between the two expos for me personally, was the collaboration with the team. While in Dubai we worked with almost exclusively Belgian staff, in Shanghai we opted for more local people. This was mainly based on the language in China. The daily and close contact with local people at the pavilion was a very special experience. We learned an awful lot about the local culture as a result! This also benefited our partners and sponsors.
The future? Even more than in previous editions, we need to seize all opportunities. Now you have to take full advantage of every platform provided to make a lasting impression. Social media, providing keynote speakers at Expo's content forums, cultural events that appeal to the masses ... Our country needs to put itself in the spotlight.
A great challenge awaits BelExpo in Osaka. I wish them every success!
