MOSCOW, May 29. /ITAR-TASS/. Chinese investors will resume suspended talks in August on building a $3 billion, 25-meter deep-water port near Yevpatoria in Crimea, the republic’s first Deputy Prime Minister Rustam Temirgaliyev said.

First moves in a project announced in December and sealed with a letter of intent await Crimea's transfer to ruble transactions and securing stable water supplies seized by Ukraine, Temirgaliyev said.

This would be the first advance in Chinese plans to invest $10 billion in peninsula developments, announced before the fall of President Viktor Yanukovych.

These were to develop at Yevpatoria, upgrade the port in the city of Sevastopol and create an economic zone in Crimea for electronics and IT companies.

A $7 billion worth second stage was expected to build oil complexes, grain elevators and liquefaction plants, and to lease Crimean agricultural land.

As the peninsula’s status changed to become a region of the Russian Federation, China's interest broadened into prospective joint projects with Russia, including a bridge or a tunnel across the Kerch Strait. This links Crimea's Kerch peninsula and the Taman peninsula of Russia's Krasnodar region.

Construction could require upwards of 100 billion rubles ($2.9 billion) if rail tracks were laid along the bridge, according to Russian Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov.

Chinese companies are also keen to take part in thermal and alternative energy projects in Crimea though further investment schemes have not yet been specified.