Poland's World Expo pavilion is styled on folk art Courtesy of PARP

The construction of the Polish pavilion of this year’s World Exposition in Shanghai has been completed, government officials announced last week. Work will soon commence on the pavilion’s interior.

Opening in Shanghai in May 2010, China’s first-ever World Expo is expected to bring in 70 million visitors, eclipsing the 5.6 million attendance seen during the 2008 expo in Spain. Last year, Poland prepared for the event by hosting 414 meetings between Chinese investors and 46 Polish companies.

“The Expo is a great opportunity to promote Poland as an investment target and tourist destination,” Bożena Lublińska-Kasprzak from the Polish Agency for Enterprise Development (PARP) said at a news conference last week.

The possibility of such high exposure prompted Poland to boost its budget for this year’s pavilion to around zł.40 million, up from the zł.27 million spent last time around but significantly less than the zł.113 million originally planned for this year. The figure was slashed due to the economic crisis.

The pavilion, inspired by the traditional folk art of paper cut-outs, is one of a few national pavilions chosen by the World Expo organizers for use on promotional materials.

However, despite its design choice, the focus of Poland’s presence at the expo will mark a shift away from promotion of its heritage. “Poland will promote itself as modern and young,” said Sławomir Majman, head of the Polish Information and Foreign Investment Agency (PAIiIZ).

PAIiIZ and PARP plan to send a number of trade missions to this year’s expo, focusing on subjects like food, environmental protection and maritime economy. Around seven seminars and roundtables on tourism, entrepreneurship incubators and technology parks are planned, and the potential of five of Poland’s eastern voivodships will be highlighted.

Culturally, Poland’s expo presence will focus on the music of Fryderyk Chopin, but will also include a short film about the history of Poland by Tomasz Bagiński, an animator best known for his Oscar-nominated short “The Cathedral” (2002).

Prime Minister Donald Tusk is expected to attend on May 22, the expo’s “Poland Day.”