Photo/Illutration An illustration of the venue for the 2025 Osaka Kansai Expo to be held on Yumenoshima, an artificial island in Osaka Bay (Provided by the Japan Association for the 2025 World Exposition)

Organizers of the 2025 Osaka Kansai Expo face the embarrassing prospect of opening the gala event with unfinished national pavilions.

Around 50 countries, including China and Germany, have plans to construct elaborate venues, projects that require the submittal of blueprints to the Osaka city government for approval before construction can proceed.

But as of June 30, not a single application had been submitted.

This has fueled concern that construction will not be completed in time for the April 2025 start of the expo, a high-ranking city government official said.

The 50 or so countries in question have come up with basic designs for their pavilions and are conferring with construction companies in Japan about the actual work.

The designs are often complicated, leaving the construction companies hesitant about signing contracts in case they face higher costs than initial estimates. Other issues revolve around chronic worker shortages and surging materials costs.

So far, 153 nations and regions have expressed an interest in taking part in the 2025 Osaka Kansai Expo. Three options are available for where those nations set up a base at the expo.

Some will construct their own pavilions, while others will use ones put up by the Japan Association for the 2025 World Exposition. The third option is to lease a portion of the on-site facilities.

The first option requires approval from the Osaka city government.

But with no submissions and less than two years before the start of the expo, antsy Japan Association officials are lobbying the central government to press Japanese construction companies to be more cooperative.

The government has already had to change its bidding process for its own Japan pavilion because no proper bids were submitted. The overall cost of constructing the expo venue has ballooned 1.5-fold from the initial estimate to 185 billion yen ($1.3 billion). And there are concerns the price could further rise as materials costs surge.

(This article was written by Kazuhito Suwa, Amane Sugawara and Shinji Hakotani.)

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