Prague, April 4 (CTK) – Journalist Jiri Frantisek Potuznik, 46, is likely to become the general commissioner for the Czech Republic’s participation in the Expo world exhibition in Dubai in 2020 as he has won the competition for the post, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Michaela Lagronova confirmed to CTK on Tuesday.
However, the government must approve Potuznik’s appointment, she added.
“Now he has two months to work out the Expo concept, including the budget. Then the government must yet approve the concept as well as him as the general commissioner,” Lagronova told CTK in a press release.
At present, Potuznik heads the foreign desk of the public Czech Radio.
Potuznik worked as the general commissioner for the Czech participation in the Expo 2015 in Milan, Italy. Five years earlier, he was the marketing director of the Czech exposition at the Expo in Shanghai, China.
Potuznik is also one of the 12 candidates for general director of the public Czech Television (CT). The first competition round is scheduled for April 12, while the CT Council will select a new director from those who will be shortlisted for the second round on April 26.
Before Dubai, the Czech Republic will take part in a small Expo exhibition to be held in the Kazakh capital of Astana from June 10 to September 10, 2017. Kazakhstan expects 47 participating countries and some 5.5 million visitors to the exhibition.
Last year, Jan Krs, who worked as a commercial counsel in Astana for six years and also at foreign offices in Moscow and Yekaterinburg, was appointed the commissioner for the Czech participation in the Expo in Astana.
President Milos Zeman with Czech businesspeople’s delegation will attend the opening of the Czech pavilion in Astana. They will visit it on their way from Vietnam, daily Lidove noviny (LN) wrote on Tuesday.
The Expo world exhibitions are divided into the small ones, such as that in Zaragoza, Spain, in 2008 with some 104 exhibiting countries and 5.5 million visitors, and the big ones, for instance, in Shanghai, China, in 2010, which attracted 192 countries and 73 million visitors. The next big one will take place in Dubai.
