Chinese companies may invest $2 billion to build hotels in Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi, the host city for the 2014 Winter Olympic games, Russia's RBC daily said on Tuesday.
Chinese firms are likely to build at least 10 hotels with a total of 13,000 rooms, the paper quoted a statement by the Russian-Chinese economy and investment cooperation center as saying.
After the Olympics, the newly-built hotels could be sold to Russian or foreign companies.
"Currently the issue is about making the list of the companies to buy up the Olympic hotels. The pool of Chinese investors has already been formed," the business daily quoted the Russian-Chinese economy and investment cooperation center deputy head, Yuri Demochkin, as saying.
RBC daily said Chinese enterprises are highly interested in constructing three-, four- and five-star hotels.
Russian experts are skeptical about the project, RBC said, because investors will unlikely to find buyers for their hotels, due to the highly volatile Russian investment climate. Prices for housing apartments in Sochi exceed in some cases prices in Italy.
Russian media earlier said Telman Ismailov, owner of the ACT Group, was going to build hotels with about 4,000 rooms in Sochi and its vicinity. Olimpstroi, official coordinator of the Olympic project, confirmed the information.
MOSCOW, April 6 (RIA Novosti)
