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With Expo 2025 in Osaka just over a year away, organizers face a host of issues, including a construction logjam. As of March 28, work on only 12 of about 50 country pavilions had begun. (Source photos by Yo Inoue)

Japan's Expo 2025: Osaka triumph or billion-dollar folly?

World fair site on 'Dream Island' mired in construction delays and doubling of costs

OSAKA -- Japan's World Expo: A chance to showcase the technological and manufacturing prowess of a powerhouse economy for the whole planet to see, opening a window on to how to do business in, and with, Asia.

But that was in 1970. Fast-forward more than half a century, and the iteration of the fair that's set to open in Osaka in just over a year is beset by major construction delays, reflecting structural problems like growing labor shortages and overtime restrictions that will plague the world's fourth-biggest economy for years to come.

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