SARAJEVO (Bosnia and Herzegovina), January 17 (SeeNews) – Turkish consortium Heritage Turk is planning to invest nearly 4.2 billion euro ($5.1 billion) in the construction of a tourism complex in Bosnia's Koricani, on the slopes of mount Vlasic, the chairperson of the consortium, Ebru Guersan, told SeeNews on Wednesday.
Guersan is due to visit Bosnia and Herzegovina by the end of the month to meet with Heritage Turk Balkan director, Anela Yalinpala, and Zoran Vujinovic, director of local firm Tomix and general manager of the project, to finalise negotiations, she said in response to an e-mailed SeeNews enquiry.
Guersan noted that courtesy visits will also be paid to local authorities.
"This one is just the first meeting. During the next weeks our real estate developers from France and finance experts from Swiss and our Turkish contractor groups will be visiting the project area to meet Bosnia and Herzegovina's side of the project," she added.
Still left to negotiate, Guersan explained, are details like land mortgages, state incentives for foreign investors, tax allowances, as well as local employment and subcontractors and credit lines from local banks.
"We have many details to work on during the spring".
Once launched, the project will take 10 years to complete.
It a 100% private sector project, Guersan said.
"There is no state guarantees or public partnership on the table for now".
Bosnian media have reported that, apart from tourism facilities, the consortium Heritage Turk is planning to build an airport in the vicinity of the project.
Koricani is situated in both of Bosnia's two entities, the Serb Republic and the Federation.
Heritage Turk, along with sister company China's Heritage Resources Ltd and Caricom Oil China make up the Heritage Platform as a dynamic and fast government - to - government financing and funding gateway organisation, backed by China and Chinese investment banks, Sinosure, sovereign and private equity funds, Chinese state-owned corporations and private investors.
According to Guersan, sometimes the consortium can focus on private sector development projects like the Koricani Vlasic project.
"You know, between Turkey and Bosnia and Herzegovina, there are very strong historical, human based and economical relations. I guess, it is a moral duty for us as a Turkish origin project developer to be a part of Bosnia's development process," she noted.
The Heritage Platform is headquartered in Hong Kong/Beijing and Ankara/Istanbul and has active land offices and local partners in 17 countries. It is managed by chairman Guersan from Heritage Turk and chairman Gordon Lee from Heritage China.
($=0.817301 euro)