OREANDA-NEWS. January 15, 2009. RosStroyInvest (RSI) unilaterally cancelled the agreement with the Rostov regional administration on leasing a land plot in Azov City gaming zone. The CEO of the company Vladimir Nor-Simavonts explains the decision by the fact that the land plot won by them is situated too far from the sea (800m).

“In December we submitted the application on cancelling the agreement of the land plot lease to the regional Ministry of Economics,” said V. Nor-Simavonts. “Once all the relevant procedures are fulfilled, it will be cancelled. In our application we referred to the clause of the agreement that enables us to announce cancellation without giving reasons.”

RSI has become the third investor refusing from construction in the region`s part of the gaming zone. As early as in summer the project was left by Casinos Austria and Formula-1.
RSI was the largest investor in Rostov`s part of Azov City. The company won its land plot having made a commitment to invest 340 million rubles in building facilities. Formula-1 promised to invest 350 million rubles in its land plot but it did not enter the lease agreement.

The director of the Regional Association of Gambling Operators in the Southern Federal District Nickolay Oganezov believes that the main reason why RSI left the project are difficulties with financing it under the crisis conditions. “The decision might also have been influenced by the uncertainty with the terms of providing infrastructural facilities, due to be built by the regional administration, to the borders of the zone. Only electrical communications have been provided so far – they have not started laying the gas and water piping and roads yet. They will not manage to provide roads and water piping in 2009, despite the promise made by the region,” he says.