Diplomatic mechanisms will be used to promote Yekaterinburg, Sverdlovsk Region, and Yekaterinburg’s application for hosting World Universal Exhibition EXPO 2020. The possibility of using these mechanisms was discussed at Governor Evgeny Kuivashev’s meeting with heads of Yekaterinburg-based diplomatic missions on September 25. This proved a very lively discussion. It was decided to hold such meetings on a regular basis and to have the next one as soon as January to exchange the latest news on how the city’s EXPO 2020 application is progressing, Governor of Sverdlovsk Region’s PR Department reports.

The Governor pointed out that the application was a top priority project for both the regional and the federal governments, since the exhibition would promote the city and the region’s further development. China’s Shanghai and South Korea’s Yeosu that have already hosted such exhibitions are good examples of this.

‘We have about 400 days left before the voting is closed. This year’s main event is the creation of the application portfolio for Yekaterinburg; it’s a dossier that covers all the aspects of the city’s life, that gives data on its infrastructure, and that offers a draft budget for the prospective event as well as proposes ways of using the exhibition infrastructure after the event is over,’ says Deputy Director-General of the NGO EXPO 2020 Application Committee Andrei Nevsky.

According to Nevsky, the two earlier presentations of Yekaterinburg in Paris were a great success, while the July presentation was declared the best among all the applying cities. The next presentation has been scheduled for this November. By April or May 2013, Nevsky says, the BIE experts will come up with a summary of information on the candidate cities, and this summary will be presented to the BIE members.