If anyone doubts the significance of the world expo, don’t tell that to the Chinese. In the wake of the global financial crisis, China has committed to organizing the largest-ever world expo.

Once called the world’s fair, the numbers surrounding next year’s event in Shanghai are staggering. China will spend about 4.2 billion dollars staging the expo, more, in fact than was spent for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Expo organizers expect 70 million people to attend the 6-month-long festival including about 3.5 million visitors from overseas. Compare this to the last world expo, which was held Japan in 2005, and attracted slightly over 22 million visitors.