BIE to consider Dubai's Expo 2020 bid

Senior figures at the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE) will give serious consideration to all of the bidders for the Expo 2020, which includes Dubai.

The city is up against Izmir in Turkey, Sao Paulo in Brazil, Yekaterinburg in Russia and Ayutthaya in Thailand and the competition has now reached a crucial stage.

BIE officials will scrutinise each applicant in depth and any that fall short of the requirements to host the high-profile event will be eliminated from the process, the National reports. The organisation was keen to stress the bids have not yet been compared against each and will be judged on their own merits.

Once the competition has progressed, the remaining entrants will face each other in a vote involving all 166 BIE nations and a winner will be unveiled in November 2013.

Ruler of Dubai Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid explained in an article for the publication just what hosting the Expo 2020 would mean to the city.

'When we proposed to host the world's biggest cultural event, we promised to astonish the world. Today we pledge to breathe life into our slogan: we will bring minds together for a better future,' he wrote.

The BIE visited the UAE in February to check out Dubai's credentials and it will soon became apparent what they thought of the emirate.

On paper, Dubai has an excellent chance of landing the important exhibition, as it has a reputation for staging international conferences across a wide range of industries.

The World Expo has made a huge difference to host cities in the past, most notably Shanghai in 2010 and the Dubai government thinks it will bring untold benefits to the emirate if its bid is successful.

Last month, a study by Oxford Economics concluded that more than 277,000 jobs could be created if Dubai is given permission to stage the event. Around 90 per cent of these new roles would become available between 2018 and 2021, the organisation stated.