Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Alexander Misharin offered his comments on Russia’s official decision to take part in the competition for hosting the world exhibition EXPO 2020 and on Yekaterinburg being chosen as the potential host city.

This is extremely important for the region, this decision has a lot of work behind it, a year’s work of a team; it also stems from the fact that the city is developing very rapidly, and so is its infrastructure (hotels, roads, and communications). This choice is an assessment of our business community’s efforts and an indicator of how Yekaterinburg itself is seen by the authorities,’ Misharin said.

Russia is to present Yekaterinburg’s application on November 15, 2011.

We now have to decide on the final concept. There is a lot of hard work to be done. We’ll have to compete with serious rivals. For one, Turkey and Taiwan have already come up with their applications. Brazil and the United States also declared they were willing to take part in the contest. We must do everything possible to win,’ the Governor pointed out.