Russia to spend additional $31 mln on 2010 Shanghai exhibition

MOSCOW, October 26 (RIA Novosti) - Russia will spend an additional 900 million rubles ($31 million) on organizing its display at the Expo-2010 exhibition in Shanghai, Deputy Industry and Trade Minister Stanislav Naumov said.
 
The exhibition will be held under the motto of A Better City, Better Life from May 1 through October 31 near Shanghai in an area of six square kilometers (2.3 sq. miles) and is expected to be attended by as many as over 70 million visitors.

Naumov said the All-Russian Exhibition Center in Moscow was the official contractor to arrange the Russian display at the exhibition, which won the tender in 2007. The contract’s total cost of 224 million rubles ($7.75 million) was defined before a decision on building Russia’s own display pavilion in Shanghai was made.

“An additional 900 million rubles has been allocated from the [federal] budget,” Naumov said on Friday after a roundtable discussion on Russia as a global technological dialogue leader at the 2010 Exhibition.
 
“Our pavilion is a sort of site for the creation of technological alliances… With the economy exiting the [global financial] crisis, we must not scrimp because the effect from Russia’s qualitative participation in the Expo-2010 will be colossal,” he said.

“Competition will be tough and it is necessary to make sure each person who comes to Shanghai from May through October visits our pavilion,” he said.