MOSCOW, September 5 (Itar-Tass) —— In the setting up of the Ust-Luga commercial seaport will be invested 112.6 million roubles (USD 1 = RUB 29.34), including 68.7 million roubles will be spent for the financing of design works for the creation and development of the industrial zone, 42.4 million roubles of credits, 18.2 million roubles of owns funds, 8.1 million roubles of the government’s investments, and 43.9 million roubles of funds for the construction of a new city, said documents presented at the interregional conference of the United Russia party in the North-Western Federal District.
The project envisages creation of a large East-European transport hub, an industrial zone with an area of 3,500 hectares, in the Kingisepp municipal district of the Leningrad region.
The industrial zone is aimed at the development of cargo shipment and processing of cargoes at the Ust-Luga seaport, as well as at the construction of a new city for the population of 34,500. In the future, the city’s population is expected to reach 58,000. The project will make it possible to create about 20,400 new jobs.
The project is planned to be implemented in the period from 2011 to 2030.
Ust-Luga is a town and railway station in the Kingisepp district of Russia’s Leningrad region, situated on the Luga River near its entry into the Luga Bay of the Gulf of Finland, about 110 kilometres west of St. Petersburg.
Ust-Luga is the site of an important coal and fertilizer terminal, constructed at a cost of 2.1 billion U.S. dollars. Construction works started in 1997, in part to avoid dry cargo shipments through the Baltic States, and were accelerated at the urging of former president Vladimir Putin, who inaugurated the new port facilities in 2001. The 3,700-metre approach canal is deep and capable of accommodating ships with a capacity of 150,000 tonnes and more. In May 2008, Putin confirmed that Ust-Luga will be the final point of the projected Second Baltic Pipeline, an oil transportation route bypassing Belarus.
As of 2005, the population of Ust-Luga does not exceed 2,000, but the port administration expects it to grow to 34,000 by 2025. This would make Ust-Luga the first new town built in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union.