The city of Dnipro is to build an industrial park, Innovation Forpost, on 61.4 ha with UAH 2.7 billion in investment, the Dnipro Development Agency has said.

"All procedures for Innovation Forpost industrial park blueprints were completed in July 2018. A total of UAH 2.7 billion in investment will be raised for the industrial park within five years, 9.93% of this amount is planned to be taken from the city's budget, 9.45% from the state, the rest of the financing are funds of investors and the management company," Director of the Dnipro Development Agency Volodymyr Panchenko told Interfax-Ukraine.

According to Deputy Mayor of Dnipro Jaanika Merilo, Innovation Forpost will be located 4 km from the city center on an area formerly owned by Interpipe's plant. The park will house offices and R&D centers, an exhibition complex with an innovative science museum, a HypeUA testing site, business incubators, training campuses, residential blocks with a kindergarten, a hotel and green areas.

Panchenko adds that the development of transport and engineering networks will begin in October 2018. Construction is scheduled to start in the spring of 2019, and the first facilities of the park will be put into operation by the end of the year.

"The first facilities of the industrial park will be the front office of the industrial park, the Industrial EXPO exhibition center, offices and the prototyping center as part of the business incubator, urban amenities," Panchenko said.

According to him, the agency is preparing separate investment projects and investors are being selected under each of them.

"We already have requests for four project sites in the production area, companies come from the innovation sphere. For example, today one company plans to produce commodities by printing products on 3D printers. There are also investors interested in building an expo center on 12,000 square meters. A trade and service area is an attracting project too," he said.

The Innovation Forpost project envisages the construction of new buildings (production and office buildings, maintenance complexes) and the reconstruction of existing ones. For example, the foundry is planned to be transformed into exhibition art space.

According to agency, the park will create 5,000 jobs.

"For us, this site is one of ten that we plan to launch in Dnipro. Investors have Ukrainian and foreign roots. It is wrong to think that they do not want to invest, it's just necessary to create favorable conditions," Panchenko said.

According to him, not only budget funds and private investment but also grants can be used to finance a project. In particular, the Dnipro Development Agency this year has won two European grants worth UAH 22 million.