Flanders will be represented at the World Exhibition in Shanghai in 2010, but it was a close-run thing. “There are many better ways these days to promote a country or a region than to stand in a corner of the Belgian pavilion at something so outdated as a world exhibition,†said Flemish minister-president Kris Peeters in October 2007, commenting on the decision taken by his government several weeks previously, but not at the time announced. “It costs far too much, and brings relatively little in return,†he said.