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Russia, China to invest $800 million in development of tourism, social projects

Most of the funds will be spent on the tourism sphere development

SHANGHAI, May 20 /ITAR-TASS/. Russia-China Investment Fund (RCIF) and the Vcanland company, a leading Chinese developer in the sphere of tourism, have signed a memorandum of understanding on the establishment of a joint investment fund that will deal with projects in the sphere of tourism and care of senior citizens. The fund’s targeted size will be 800 million U.S. dollars. The RCIF that invests the initial capital in the fund later plans to start negotiations on the attraction of other international investors as well, mainly from China, RCIF Co-Director Kirill Dmitriyev said.

“Most of the funds (60 - 70%) will be spent on the tourism sphere development. The geographical focus will be on such destinations as the Hainan Island, Lake Baikal, the cities of Vladivostok and Sochi,” Dmitriyev said. Other funds will be used for the construction of housing for senior citizens.

China at present is the second most popular destination among Russian tourists, and Russia - the third most popular destination for Chinese, and in the next 10 years the Russian tourism sector will be growing, according to forecasts of the RCIF official.

In 2012, Russia and China agreed to create a Russian-Chinese investment fund, which serves as platform for investment interaction. In 2013, the volume of China’s direct investments in the Russian economy grew fivefold to reach 4 billion USD. By the start of 2013, the total amount of Russia’s direct investments in China was valued at 847.7 million USD (+3.6 %). The overall amount of Russian projects involving direct investments in China reached 2,400 (+3%). Projects worth almost 20 billion dollars of capital investments are being implemented in 40 directions. The power sector is the driving force behind the Sino-Russian cooperation though agriculture and agribusiness also have a huge cooperation potential.

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