COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AFP) — Denmark plans to build nine artificial islands in southern Copenhagen in a bid to attract businesses, the government announced on Monday, amid a housing and office space shortage.

“We’re targeting high-tech companies but there’s always a need for the production of products we use in our daily lives too,” Industry and Business Minister Rasmus Jarlov told Danish news agency Ritzau.

Construction on the nine islands is scheduled to begin in 2022, covering an area of three million square metres (32.3 million square feet).

The first plots of land will be sold in 2028 and the project, the financial details of which have not been disclosed, should be completed by 2040.

The aim is to attract some 380 companies to the area, located near Copenhagen airport.

“I think this could become a sort of European Silicon Valley,” the head of the Danish Chamber of Commerce, Brian Mikkelsen, told TV2 television.

The mammoth project follows another major infrastructure initiative announced last autumn, whereby 20,000 new homes will be built on a polder — low-lying land reclaimed from the sea — north of the capital.