EXPO REAL 2016: Moscow's development projects to adopt practices from abroad

"For the biggest players, the international EXPO REAL trade fair creates the most supportive conditions possible for entering the market and developing partner networks. This directly concerns the Russian capital too," said Igor Tkach, Deputy Head of the Moscow Government Department for External Economic and International Relations, at a meeting in Munich with Uwe Albrecht, Deputy Mayor of Leipzig.

Mr Albrecht also noted the high level of the discussions at the exhibition, and emphasised that EXPO REAL always attracted representatives of every stage in the construction process – planners, investors, developers, construction suppliers and marketing experts.

The main areas covered by EXPO REAL this year are "Real estate investment", "Global market analysis and consulting", "Architecture and urban planning", "Project management", "Commercial real estate", "Real estate marketing", and "Education and training".

Mikhail Men, Russia's Minister of Construction, Housing and Utilities, has addressed two roundtables at the Moscow stand ("Development leaders: best practices in Russia and abroad" and "Integrated territorial development: scales of development in Russia"). "In Russia, shaping the urban environment is becoming a public policy objective, and the government is ready to assist such projects," said the Minister during a panel discussion. "The government this year has started supporting urban improvement projects in earnest. We believe that only a combination of the efforts of the authorities, developers and residents themselves can produce a synergistic effect in the development of the urban environment."

Addressing a roundtable, Drees & Sommer Partner Steffen Sendler emphasised that it would be very much in the interest of foreign investors were BIM technologies to be gradually adopted in planning in Russia, as this would allow simultaneous consideration of multiple factors in construction. For his part, Mr Men assured the participants that work in this area was indeed being done in Moscow: an action plan is to be confirmed by the end of the year, and a number of government projects using the technologies will be carried out as early as 2017.

Moscow's EXPO REAL stand hosted discussions on the topics "Investing in housing construction in Russia: pros and cons", "Transforming the energy of a territory into the energy of the new life of the capital" and "International practices in using heritage as the basis for a new investment philosophy". These were attended by many urban planning specialists and investors and attracted great interest from other visitors to the exhibition.