Itera ousted from Belarus

Belarus gas canceled a contract with “Itera” company for construction of Minks-City.

A new investor is to be found for realization of the project Minsk City business centre project. Such a decision has been adopted by Alyaksandr Lukashenka on February 16 after he listened to the report on implementation of his orders regarding construction of this business centre, BelaPAN informs.

“A decision has been made it is necessary to terminate relations between the existing investor and the Republic of Belarus,” said Minsk mayor Mikalai Ladutska. “We have several offers submitted by other investment companies from different countries. They will be invited to join the project on the terms initially stipulated for the existing investor. We will get on it fast and the relevant proposal will be submitted to investment companies.”

City authorities have been ordered to elaborate an order of establishing relations between such companies and Belarus represented by Minsk city executive committee. In case some conditions of possible new investors would not satisfy the Belarusian side, Minsk city executive committee is to set up an enterprise which would take upon itself relaisation of the investment project, the press-service of the leader of the state informs.

It should be noted that back in September last year Lukashenka expressed dissatisfaction over realization of “Minsk-City” project and demanded to implement it within the previously agreed timeframe.

In response the international group of companies “Itera” stated that “being a strategic investor of Mnisk City project, it intended to fulfill obligations, considering Lukashenka’s observations.”

According to the agreement, the project was to be implemented in 11 stages. The old Minsk airport, an aircraft repair plant and other economic entities situated at the territory of the future Minsk City are to be torn down. 3.3 mln square metres of real property assets and social infrastructure objects were planned to be constructed on 318 hectares until 2020.

On January 17, 2012 in an interview to Chinese mass media, Lukashenka stated that Belarus is in favour of offering Minsk City construction to China. “We have started Minsk City construction and publicized this construction. We were greatly interested, just like it had been constructed in Beijing (it would not be such a huge construction though), for the Chinese to arrive and help us construct Minsk City,” Lukashenka said. “Let China build and finance it, and then sell these buildings, we do not oppose giving this construction to you, together with other companies – state, private and so on.”