The mission of the International Bureau of Exhibitions (BIE), the authority concerned with evaluating the ability of the candidate cities to host Expo 2030, has intensified its ministerial-level meetings, to assess the infrastructure of the Saudi capital, which is seeking to host the major global event. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, met in Riyadh on Tuesday the president of the BIE’s Administration and Budget Committee, Patrick Specht, and his accompanying delegation, to review Saudi Arabia’s candidature to organize World Expo 2030 in Riyadh, under the theme “The Era of Change: Together for a Foresighted Tomorrow”. The delegation also held a number of meetings and dialogue sessions with Saudi ministers, over the course of the week, to learn about the Kingdom’s development plans for the proposed site to host the global exhibition. “We continue our efforts to develop a sustainable tourism sector, and the development of tourism and promising projects that will make the Kingdom and Riyadh in particular one of the most important tourist destinations in the world, which will contribute to achieving the goal of receiving 100 million tourists by 2030,” Tourism Minister Ahmad All-Khatib said following his meeting with the BIE mission. For his part, Minister of Economy and Planning, Faisal Al-Ibrahim, pointed to Saudi Arabia’s efforts to diversify its economy and increase the share and contribution of non-oil activities and the private sector to the gross domestic product. In a statement on Friday, he said: “Riyadh plays a pivotal role in the Kingdom’s economic diversification strategy, given its growing regional status for large multinational companies operating in various strategic sectors.” Eng. Abdullah Alswaha, Saudi Minister of Communications and Information Technology, drew attention to his country’s aspirations to host Expo 2030 in Riyadh, stressing that it reflected its willingness to assume a leading role on the global stage. A statement by the BIE said that over the course of five days, members of the Enquiry Mission received detailed presentations of the candidature project, visited the proposed Expo site, and met with officials, as well as representatives of the business community and members of civil society. In the event that the Kingdom is awarded the Expo 2030 hosting, the global exhibition is scheduled be held from October 2030 to April 2031.