Linar Yakupov holds briefing on SMART City Kazan
Chief Executive of the Tatarstan Investment Development Agency Linar Yakupov held a briefing in the House of the Government of the Republic of Tatarstan today to discuss the development plans of SMART City Kazan.
During the course of the one-hour meeting, Linar Yakupov told the journalists gathered about the origins of the idea for SMART City Kazan, what the short-term and long-term development plans are, and how SMART City Kazan fits into the larger concept of Greater Kazan.
SMART City Kazan is an urban development project on 650 hectares of land 3 kilometers from Kazan International Airport and 15 kilometers from the Kazan city center. An Aeroexpress commuter railway will connect SMART City Kazan with both the airport and city center.
SMART City Kazan’s master plan is being developed by Malaysian companies AJM Planning & Urban Design Group and Straits Consulting Engineers in partnership with a local organization, Tatinvestgrazhdanproekt. The master plan is expected to be completed in February of this year.
According to Linar Yakupov, the origins of SMART City Kazan lie in an observation made by international business partners in 2009 that Kazan is in need of a world-class exhibition and conference center. In 2011, this exhibition and conference center project expanded into a project to create a greenfield urban development that would serve to attract international companies to the region, increase the quality of the service industry and business services in the republic, and – through the use of state-of-the-art, “smart” technology – improve Tatarstan’s image globally. Land near Kazan International Airport was set aside for this project, which was named SMART City Kazan.
During the briefing, Linar Yakupov explained to the journalists present that SMART City Kazan will be divided into several main zones, which will be developed in stages. The first zone to be developed will be the so-called business center. The heart of this business center will be an International Congress and Exhibition Center, a business park, and a transit hotel. An Aeroexpress station will link SMART City Kazan’s business center with Kazan and Kazan International Airport. In the first stage of development the International Congress and Exhibition Center is expected to have 30,000 square meters of space, but if needed it could be expanded to be as large as 100,000 square meters. The business center will have 10,000 square meters, and the hotel will be 7,000 to 10,000 meters of space.
SMART City Kazan’s second-most important area of growth in the early phases of development will be the Special Economic Zone, which will be located on 102 hectares of land closest to Kazan International Airport. The Special Economic Zone will be focused on developing high technology production. TIDA and Kazan International Airport are currently working on the creation of a cargo terminal that would service the Special Economic Zone.
Two other development zones within SMART City Kazan are the research and education center (202 hectares) and the tourism cluster (100 hectares). According to Linar Yakupov, TGT Oil & Gas is planning on opening a 5,000 to 10,000 square meter research and development center in SMART City Kazan.
In the second part of the briefing, Linar Yakupov answered questions posed by Tatarstan journalists. In response to a question about how the project will be financed, Linar Yakupov explained that government financing will be minimal, and only in the first stage of the project, as a catalyst to jump-start the process. “If we expect the first stage of development to cost $2.5 billion, only 10% of this investment will be made by the government to establish the framework for basic infrastructure,” he said. “All other development within Smart City Kazan will come at the hands of private investors.”
The TIDA Chief Executive pointed to Medini Iskandar Malaysia as an example of an urban development project that used this method of financing. In this case, the government’s investment in the project was matched with 33 times more private investment. A Tatarstan delegation led by President Rustam Minnikhanov visited Medini during an official visit to Malaysia earlier this January to study the project.
In response to a question regarding the proximity of SMART City Kazan to Kazan International Airport, Linar Yakupov assured journalists that the new development does not lie within the so-called emission zone of Kazan International Airport. “From the very beginning, we paid attention to assure that SMART City Kazan does not lie within this zone in the future, especially as it develops and expands. Not one centimeter of SMART City Kazan falls within the emission zone,” he said.
Linar Yakupov also emphasized the importance of this project as a necessary step towards creating the necessary conditions for investors to realize projects within the Republic of Tatarstan. “We are currently working on creating sites like SMART City Kazan and Innopolis, where all the rules of the game are clear for investors,” he explained. “Above all, SMART City Kazan is a platform for attracting investment.”
Tatarstan Investment Development Agency Press Service