Bulgaria’s Bansko expecting 1m tourists despite lack of snow

Poland to receive €11.2bn in EU subsidies in 2007

Slovenia to invest almost €9bn on its railways

Cost of construction in India is rapidly rising

Middle East provides foundations for a sprawling new Russian city

Bulgaria’s Bansko expecting 1m tourists despite lack of snow

The number of tourists to visit Bulgaria’s winter resort of Bansko this season is expected to reach between 800,000 and 1m people.

Nearly 25% more tourists are expected during the season 2006/2007 ski season according to Bulgarian newspaper Novinar. The majority of foreign tourists are expected to come from Russia, the report said.

The resort will be able to accommodate more foreigners because of the increased number of functioning hotels and there are now more than 25 three to five-star hotels operating in Bansko.

However, there has been a desperate lack of snow across many European ski resorts this season and Bansko is no exception, with just 3 of its 24 ski lifts in operation on 15 December. In addition, construction is ongoing in the resort, despite the government introducing a ban, Novinar reported.

Poland to receive €11.2bn in EU subsidies in 2007

Poland will receive €11.2bn from the EU budget in 2007, according to EU budget commissioner Dalia Grybauskaite who has just approved the final draft of the 2007 budget. The subsidy means that Poland will receive four times more than it will pay into the EU budget.

"In 2007, some 40% of structural funds will go to new EU states, while in 2006 that was only 23%", said Grybauskaite.

Slovenia to invest almost €9bn on its railways

Slovenia plans to allocate €8.89bn for modernising its railway network between 2008 and 2020 in what will be the most expensive of the projects in the 2007-2023 resolution of national development programmes, Transport Minister Janez Bozic has said.

The amount moreover presents over two thirds of the €12.2bn that Slovenia intends to invest in the four transport projects in the resolution.

The investment in railroad infrastructure is designed mainly to increase the allowed maximum weight of trains and increase the speeds on the main routes to 160km/hour.

Also upgraded will be the links between Ljubljana and the transport hub of Zidani, and between Zidani and Pragersko in the northeast, along with Zidani and the rest of the southeast region, including the rail border crossing with Croatia.

Cost of construction in India is rapidly rising

The cost of building a house or any other property is becoming costlier for Indians, where the government has not been able to slowdown the surging prices of almost all construction materials.

The cost of constructing a house has gone up by almost 30-40% in the last 12 months and the cost of cement in particular has proved impossible to regulate as a powerful lobby of cement manufacturers have continually managed to block bans on exports of the product.

However, the cost of building bricks is reported to have risen even faster, at close to 50% in the last 12 months, as has the cost of sand.

Another major factor responsible for rising cost of house construction is the sharp rise in cost of steel, which has risen by over 25% in the same period.

Middle East provides foundations for a sprawling new Russian city

A new city is being created just outside Moscow, called Great Domodedovo, which is set to become a symbol of life in 21st-century Russia. Funded by Middle Eastern investors, Phase One will put 450,000 people into more than 3,000 hectares of development at a cost of £5.6bn.

The initial development will involve the construction of 150,000 apartments and houses and 600,000sqm of retail space, as well as schools, a university, sports facilities and hospitals.

Eventually, Great Domodedovo, which will be built on land close to Domodedovo airport outside the Russian capital, could cover 18,000 hectares, six times the size of Phase One.

Vladimir Pinaev, managing director at Jones Lang LaSalle Russia, is reported to have said: “The magnitude of the project would be amazing, if it is completed. It’s easily the biggest single real estate project so far in Russia.”

Capital for the project is being provided by Limitless, the foreign investment arm of Dubai World, a real estate holding company owned by the Dubai Government. The local partner is Coalco, an experienced Russian developer with rights to 18,000 hectares.

Saaed Ahmed Saeed, the chief executive of Limitless, says that Russia has ‘the largest and fastest-growing real estate market in Europe.’ Like the Middle East, it also has a rapidly growing middle class, who increasingly want to buy houses or flats in new suburban communities.

Meanwhile, Russian investment company Nafta Moskva is putting $3bn into a 600 hectare private town outside Moscow, called Rublyozo-Arkhangelskoye, which is said to be the second biggest real estate development in Russia. The project’s houses are aimed at high-net-worth families, earning the project the nickname of ‘millionaires’ town.’