In case Yekaterinburg gets selected as the city to host the EXPO 2020 exhibition, $20bn will be allocated from the federal budget to coordinate the event, Sverdlovsk Region’s Minister for Investments & Development Mikhail Maksimov said in the course of the recent Investment Safari Forum in Yekaterinburg.

‘We are not quite ready to host EXPO right now, but if we do manage to prepare and to convince the arriving committees that the project is feasible, we will be trusted to organize the exhibition,’ the official said.

‘The government said: we will provide you with the resources. If you win, we’ll help you with the things you could never manage on your own, such as the underground, the public transportation, roads, and transport infrastructure. The government is willing to allocate about $15bn for the infrastructure development. This is the money this city has never spent on itself and never will, unless we win in this campaign,’ the Minister explained.

Yekaterinburg is currently competing for the right to host EXPO 2020 with Ayutthaya, Thailand, Dubai, the UAE, Izmir, Turkey, and Sao Paolo, Brazil.