Saudi Arabia beats Italy, South Korea to host 2030 world fair

Saudi Arabia's Riyadh won the right to host the Expo 2030 world fair, vote results showed on Tuesday (Nov 28), in another diplomatic victory for a Gulf country after the Qatar World Cup last year.

Saudi Arabia's Riyadh won the right to host the Expo 2030 world fair, vote results showed on Tuesday (Nov 28), in another diplomatic victory for a Gulf country after the Qatar World Cup last year.

South Korea's Busan and Italy's Rome were also in the running to host the world fair, a five-yearly event that attracts millions of visitors and billions of dollars in investment.

Riyadh won 119 votes, Busan 29 and Rome 17, results from 182 members of the Paris-based Bureau International des Expositions (BIE) showed. Saudi Arabia needed to garner two-thirds of the votes to win from the first round.

The Italian contestants were scathing in their disappointment.

"This huge result for Saudi was unexpected in those proportions," Giampiero Massolo, head of the Italian Expo bid, told reporters. "It is no longer about the merits, but about transactions."