The construction of Lazika, an “instant city” on Georgia’s Black Sea coast, will begin in the next few days, President Mikheil Saakashvili said on Wednesday.
"In a few days, my dream to build a new, beautiful city of Lazika as an extension of [the port city of] Poti… will begin to come true,” the Georgian president said.
He added that the city, built on a coastal stretch of marshy land in western Georgia, will eventually become the main economic hub in the Trans-Caucasian Region.
Saakashvili voiced plans to build Lazika in early December 2011. He said he was inspired by China’s experience of “instant cities,” built from scratch to accommodate migrants from rural areas.
Georgian authorities plan to invest about $120 million in the project and rely mainly on foreign investors.
They expect Lazika to become the country’s second largest city within the next ten years, with the population growing to 500,000 people, or more than 10 percent of the country’s estimated total of 4.5 million people.
