PETROZAVODSK, August 2. /TASS/. A contractor is scheduled to start building a new shipyard with the Russia’s first digital shipyard on the basis of the Onega shipbuilding and ship repair plant in Petrozavodsk in November - December 2021, governor of Karelia Artur Parfenchikov told reporters on Monday when visiting the shipyard.

"The most important now is to achieve the construction start," the governor said. "Contractors identified by the plant should already start working here in November-December," he added.

New facilities of the plant and its digital development will make possible for Petrozavodsk to join ranks of leaders in building vessels of river-sea type, support the port infrastructure and navigation routes. Old buildings of the plant will continue to be in service during the digital shipyard construction and will be upgraded after work completion in 2024 for further use in building larger ships.

"Russia has no such shipyard so far: raw materials, metal will be fed from the one side and the ready vessel will leave from the other side. Construction will be carried by sections that will be integrated later in a single whole. These are absolutely modern technologies even in terms of global assessment," the governor said.