the building of the bridge across the Eastern Bosphorus to Russky Island, and appointed a contractor for the construction of the bridge which is expected to cost approximately US$1 billion. In November 2008, Viktor Basargin, the Minister of Regional Development of Russia, visited Vladivostok International Airport and assessed the progress of construction of the bridges and the buildings on the Russky Island. Overall, the Minister was satisfied with the overall progress and the pace of the construction. Basargin announced that everything would be ready on schedule. Due to the global and Russian financial crises, funding of development for the conference, which stands at 351 billion rubles, may be reduced by 25 billion rubles, due to reduction in the price of construction materials and streamlining of works. Despite these reductions, the Ministry of Finance of Russia announced in March 2009 that due to the crisis the federal budget was unlikely to have the previously committed 202 billion rubles fully available to finance the summit preparation projects. One of the proposed resolutions was to move the summit to Saint Petersburg, as that city's infrastructure is better developed to host the summit and would be less costly. Originally, First Deputy Prime Minister in Vladimir Putin's Second Cabinet Igor Shuvalov did not confirm that such plans exist, although he noted that the scenario is possible. Later in March, however, Shuvalov held a meeting in Moscow dealing with the issues of the summit planning, at which time it was confirmed that the summit would take place in Vladivostok and not elsewhere. During the meeting, the plans for building the theater of opera and ballet and the medical center were moved to an unspecified later date, but the rest of the construction is supposed to continue on schedule. Pre-summit tensions Taiwan's decision to hold live fire drills on 31 August on Taiping Island, ahead of Vietnam's injections were said to have increased tensions in the South China Sea disputes prior to the summit. Disputes also involve Japan and the Philippines against China, which Taiwan supports. Youth forum & the Voices of the Future program The APEC Youth Festival opened in Vladivostok in the days preceding the APEC Leader's meeting. The forum took place on the campus of the Far Eastern Federal University on September 2 to 4 in parallel with APEC-2012 Leaders' Week in Vladivostok. Delegates representing the APEC economies included undergraduate and postgraduate students, young