IT Park To Open In City By 2015
Local engineers have vowed to take St. Petersburg into the advanced world of information technology by unveiling an ambitious 8-year construction plan for an IT park in the city center last week.
Feb 20, 2008
Upon completion in 2015, the 6,000-square meter IT Park will help Russia to secure a fair share of the fast-growing global IT market, according to the project’s general director, Yevgeny Yelin.
Currently, Russia’s share in the world’s IT market, which is valued at $3 trillion and is dominated by Japan, China, India and the U.S., accounts for only $2.5 billion.
Meanwhile, the program’s masterminds are looking for investors worldwide to inject extra funds into Russia’s largest and most sophisticated IT project, which is valued at $90 million and is funded by the federal government and St Petersburg administration. It is one of seven long-term programs for cities including Moscow, Nizhny-Novgorod, Kazan, Tyumen and Kuzbas formulated in April 2006 by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. But unlike St. Petersburg’s tripartite project, the others are either yet to reach a significant size or still remain on paper.
Thanks to the active participation of the St. Petersburg administration and St. Petersburg State University of Telecommunications in the local program, preliminary work, including the design and construction of 3,000 square meters of business and training centers, has been underway since last year according to Yelin.
The St. Petersburg administration alone has allocated 152 million rubles ($6.2 million) this year for the development of the engineering facilities, infrastructure, staff housing, conference halls and training centers. It is part of a 1,409 million-ruble ($57.3 million) budget plan for 2008-2010 to be issued in parallel with 742.15 million rubles ($30.1 million) from the federal government during the same period. Swedish Technopolis, the only foreign company involved in the project so far, will also invest $150 million, according to a recent agreement reached with the Russian side, said Yelin.
"Efforts to court larger international consortiums are underway, but it’s too early to go public with the details," said Yelin, referring to the project’s transparency policies.
The cluster-model complex to be located at the area bordering Ulitsa Novoselov, Prospekt Bolshevikov, Ulitsa Dybenko and Krylenko in the Nevsky District near St. Petersburg’s historic center will also house 14,000 workers who will be offered temporary apartments, and a training campus for about 12,500 practicing and trainee programmers from across Russia and overseas, according to Alexander Gogol, rector of St Petersburg State University of Telecommunications. There are only about 5,000 programmers on the market in a city of 5 million, "prompting the need for urgency in developing the IT market," according to Gogol.
But Yelin reassured defenders of St. Petersburg’s historical and architectural heritage that they need not be worried about the new complex, as its skyline will not exceed 102 meters. The city is governed by a series of restrictive laws on architecture and building heights.
Currently, Russia’s share in the world’s IT market, which is valued at $3 trillion and is dominated by Japan, China, India and the U.S., accounts for only $2.5 billion.
Meanwhile, the program’s masterminds are looking for investors worldwide to inject extra funds into Russia’s largest and most sophisticated IT project, which is valued at $90 million and is funded by the federal government and St Petersburg administration. It is one of seven long-term programs for cities including Moscow, Nizhny-Novgorod, Kazan, Tyumen and Kuzbas formulated in April 2006 by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. But unlike St. Petersburg’s tripartite project, the others are either yet to reach a significant size or still remain on paper.
Thanks to the active participation of the St. Petersburg administration and St. Petersburg State University of Telecommunications in the local program, preliminary work, including the design and construction of 3,000 square meters of business and training centers, has been underway since last year according to Yelin.
The St. Petersburg administration alone has allocated 152 million rubles ($6.2 million) this year for the development of the engineering facilities, infrastructure, staff housing, conference halls and training centers. It is part of a 1,409 million-ruble ($57.3 million) budget plan for 2008-2010 to be issued in parallel with 742.15 million rubles ($30.1 million) from the federal government during the same period. Swedish Technopolis, the only foreign company involved in the project so far, will also invest $150 million, according to a recent agreement reached with the Russian side, said Yelin.
"Efforts to court larger international consortiums are underway, but it’s too early to go public with the details," said Yelin, referring to the project’s transparency policies.
The cluster-model complex to be located at the area bordering Ulitsa Novoselov, Prospekt Bolshevikov, Ulitsa Dybenko and Krylenko in the Nevsky District near St. Petersburg’s historic center will also house 14,000 workers who will be offered temporary apartments, and a training campus for about 12,500 practicing and trainee programmers from across Russia and overseas, according to Alexander Gogol, rector of St Petersburg State University of Telecommunications. There are only about 5,000 programmers on the market in a city of 5 million, "prompting the need for urgency in developing the IT market," according to Gogol.
But Yelin reassured defenders of St. Petersburg’s historical and architectural heritage that they need not be worried about the new complex, as its skyline will not exceed 102 meters. The city is governed by a series of restrictive laws on architecture and building heights.