King Willem-Alexander to visit Expo 2025 Osaka – programme
His Majesty King Willem-Alexander will pay a visit to Japan on Wednesday 21 and Thursday 22 May during Expo 2025 Osaka. The King will be present for the Dutch National Day on 21 May, where he will give a speech. He will also visit the Netherlands Pavilion. The King will be accompanied by foreign trade and development minister Reinette Klever, who will also undertake an economic working visit with Dutch companies to Osaka and Tokyo. Economic affairs minister Dirk Beljaarts will be leading a parallel economic mission focusing on high tech and digitalisation. The visit to Japan will take place in the context of 425 years of bilateral relations between the Netherlands and Japan.
Update 13/5/2025: During the visit, His Majesty the Emperor of Japan will invite the King to a dinner.
Update 19/5/2025: The King concludes his visit to Japan on Thursday evening with a dinner at the Imperial Residence in Tokyo.
The theme of this 36th World Expo is ‘Designing Future Society for Our Lives’. Expo 2025 Osaka is taking place from 13 April to 13 October, giving countries and organisations an international stage to present their ideas on sustainability and innovation. The exhibition explores how we can shape the world in response to challenges that affect our quality of life, such as climate change and healthcare. These challenges extend beyond national borders and require international cooperation.
The participation of the Kingdom of the Netherlands takes the form of an entirely circular pavilion on the theme of ‘Common Ground’: bringing people together to tackle global challenges on the basis of shared interests. Through interactive presentations, visitors can learn about Dutch innovations that harness the power of water. The Netherlands Pavilion serves as a meeting place for businesses, cultural organisations, knowledge institutions and other organisations working in promising areas such as the energy transition, agrifood, life sciences and health, digitalisation and culture. The Netherlands’ participation also reflects centuries of ties between the Netherlands and Japan dating back to 1600. Though the relationship began as a mainly economic one, today it encompasses issues ranging from security, defence and the international legal order, to economic resilience and innovation. Prime Minister Dick Schoof opened the Netherlands Pavilion on 22 April.
Wednesday 21 May
National Day ceremony and special event
In the morning, the King will attend the Dutch National Day ceremony and give a speech. The Dutch dance company Introdans, Japan’s LAND FES and Sadamatsu-Hamada Ballet Company will together perform UNUM, a modern dance production about inclusion. Afterwards, at Gallery East, the King will open the exhibition ‘Bridging past and future’, for which Dutch and Japanese creators collaborated in pairs to design works that combine tradition and innovation.
Visiting the pavilions of Japan and the Netherlands
In the afternoon, the King and the ministers will first visit the Japan Pavilion. The host country’ pavilion explores the Expo’s main theme, ‘Designing Future Society for Our Lives’ and presents Japanese innovations that involve sustainable transformations, such as generating biogas from food waste collected in the Expo grounds. The party will then visit the Netherlands Pavilion. There, they will learn more about the theme of ‘Common Ground’ and meet with the pavilion’s architect and the creators of the interactive experience. The King will be guided through the experience using an orb – an illuminated ball that visitors receive on entering the pavilion and that they carry with them during their tour. The orb activates interactive panels that showcase various Dutch innovations.
Later that afternoon the King will also be given a tour of Pasona Group’s pavilion, which is of particular interest to the Netherlands because it presents a ‘society of wellbeing’. In this concept state-of-the-art technologies are used to support physical and mental health, and create healthy communities.
Roundtable meeting with CEOs and reception
The King will also join the economic mission for part of its programme on Wednesday 21 May, notably the start of a roundtable meeting with CEOs of Dutch and Japanese companies. It will be chaired by two employers’ organisations: Kansai Economic Federation (Kankeiren) and the Confederation of Netherlands Industry and Employers (VNO-NCW). The focus of the meeting will be on bolstering economic cooperation between the Netherlands and the Kansai region in western Japan. Kansai offers Dutch companies exciting opportunities in life sciences and health and in chemicals – sectors that play a key role in developing solutions to global challenges.
Thursday 22 May
Osaka Castle
The King’s programme on Thursday 22 May will highlight the Netherlands’ historic, current and future partnership with Japan. Joined by foreign trade and development minister Reinette Klever, the King will start the day with a visit to Osaka Castle, the place where the countries’ bilateral relationship began in 1600. Dutch and Japanese curators have organised a special exhibition there commemorating 425 years of ‘common ground’. Besides the historic artefacts on display, the exhibition also features new storytelling objects developed by the International Research Center for Japanese Studies (Nichibunken).
Tekijuku and Nakanoshima Qross
After this visit, the King and Minister Klever will go to Tekijuku and Nakanoshima Qross, an institute for advanced medicine established in 2024. The focus of these visits will be on past collaboration in the field of medical science, which began in Tekijuku, and future collaboration on regenerative medicine.
Tekijuku was a private school for Dutch studies (rangaku) established in 1838. The predominantly medical curriculum was taught in foreign languages (Dutch). The Dutch physician Bauduin also played a key role in the school’s development, which is considered the birthplace of Western medicine in Japan. Tekijuku is the forerunner of today’s Osaka University. The King will talk with professors and students, tour a research laboratory and be given a short presentation on the history of Western medicine and the role of the Dutch language in Japanese science and technology.
Economic mission on high tech and digitalisation
In the afternoon King Willem-Alexander and Minister Klever will join economic affairs minister Dirk Beljaarts, head of the economic mission on high tech and digitalisation. The King will attend a roundtable meeting with Dutch and Japanese CEOs of companies active in these sectors and view an ‘innovation parade’. He will also be present when various Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) are signed by Dutch and Japanese companies and knowledge institutions that wish to work together on technologies such as semiconductors, quantum computing and 5G/6G telecommunications.
Government Information Service, no. 119