February 1, 2012

Russia’s Ministry for Industry presented the country’s application for hosting EXPO 2020 in Davos, Switzerland, in the course of the current economic forum. The candidate Russian city for hosting the exhibition is Yekaterinburg.

In addition to Moscow-based officials, the representatives of EXPO 2020 application committee, Sverdlovsk Region’s Minister for International & Foreign Economic Relations Alexander Kharlov, and Mayor of Yekaterinburg Evgeny Porunov arrived in Switzerland as well. It was reported that after a recent tender, a 6.5m RUR contract was signed for the development of a concept for holding World Universal Exhibition EXPO 2020 in Yekaterinburg. Sverdlovsk Region announced earlier that the cost of Yekaterinburg applying for EXPO 2020 was estimated at 300m RUR. A subsidy to this amount was thus allocated to EXPO 2020 Application Committee, a non-profit NGO.

Foreign media (like The Washington Post, for example), report the Russian Government signed a sixteen-month, $7.1m contract with Weber Shandwick to get advice on coordinating EXPO 2020. The video ads for Yekaterinburg’s application were designed by Adore Creative, a company that has worked with Reebok, Pepsi, Sony, and the Walt Disney Company.

Soon there will be launched an own Yekaterinburg EXPO website: www.expo2020.ru