Denmark plans to build nine artificial islands south of Copenhagen in a bid to attract business amid a housing and office space shortage, the government has announced.

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

The construction of the nine islands is scheduled to begin in 2022, covering an area of 3m sq metres (32.3m sq 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 about 380 companies to the area, which is 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, in which 20,000 new homes will be built on a polder, low-lying land reclaimed from the sea, north of the capital.