TOKYO, Feb 25, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - Sluggish ticket sales for this year's World Expo in Osaka prompted Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba to announce on Tuesday a move to allow same-day admission to the event.

Around 160 countries and regions are participating in Expo 2025, a six-month display of their technological and cultural prowess that kicks off on April 13 in the city in western Japan.

But lacklustre public enthusiasm and criticism over the construction budget for the fair saw just 7.8 million tickets sold as of last week -- around half the organisers' target.

Osaka's governor Hirofumi Yoshimura said in a meeting with Ishiba this month that the slow-paced sales were potentially due to a "convoluted" online process to snag advance tickets.

"As the Expo opening nears, this is our last chance to improve the situation", Yoshimura told him.

Ishiba said on Tuesday same-day tickets would be made available for on-the-spot entry to the event.

Inflation and labour shortages have caused the total construction budget to balloon 27 percent from 2020 estimates to 235 billion yen ($1.5 billion).

The first "World's Fair" to celebrate culture and industrial progress was held in London in 1851, with the Eiffel Tower built for the 1889 edition in Paris.

Now called World Expo, the event is held every five years in different global locations. The Covid-19 pandemic-delayed 2020 Dubai fair was held in 2021-22.