Shanghai Expo
Dr Kerry Brown stands down at the end of the month as executive director of the Liverpool Shanghai Partnership. Today he talks about the importance of Liverpool’s presence at the World Expo 2010
THE Shanghai Expo is about to open. After spending as much as £30bn on new roads, buildings, and parks, Shanghai will throw its doors open to the rest of the world for six months.
Up to 70 million people will make their way to the city to see the huge exhibition area, straddling either side of the river. Liverpool will be one of the exhibitors, among only 63 other cities from around the world with its own specially designated space.
When I started work on the Liverpool Shanghai Partnership in May 2006, there was a sense among the founding partners, which included local universities, companies, cultural organisation and the city council, that Liverpool had a huge asset in its link with Shanghai, and that it needed to do something big to celebrate this.
Only a year before, Shanghai had successfully bid to host one of the global expos, held every five years. Our city bid, based on the world heritage status of the city and its successful record of regeneration, was accepted in early 2008. It gave Liverpool something to really focus on, something big, ambitious and daring.
I am glad to say that, despite all the trepidation and fear about taking something on such a large scale on, partners in Liverpool and across the region have embraced the challenge. At a time of economic crisis, they didn’t balk, but set out to achieve a proper presence at this global show.
Many people from Liverpool will be able to see the fruits of this, not just in the coming six months, but in the impact it will have on relations between the two cities in the coming years.
Of course, there will always be sceptics. People who wonder why so much effort has been spent on something the other side of the world. I only have two answers for that. Like or loath China (and there are plenty of things where the UK and China differ) an economy that has just posted over 11% growth in the first months of this year while the rest of the world is still limping along cannot be ignored. Its domestic market is now starting to figure. Turning a back on the expo would be turning a back on one of the true sources of growth in the modern global economy.
And secondly, if Liverpool hadn’t been at the Expo, in light of how important its economy now is, you can imagine the criticism locally.
