The Qatari company Golden Tower Invest Group will create "high-level" hotel, recreation and health infrastructure in western Georgia’s Soviet-era Tskaltubo resort as part of a project aiming to restore the former sanatoriums of the locality into a modern spa resort destination, the Georgian Ministry of Economy announced on Monday.
State-owned non-agricultural plots of land and infrastructure located on it will be transferred to the Qatari company for implementing the project, where three-, four- and five-star hotels will be built, Economy Minister Levan Davitashvili said.
One of the sanatoriums in Tskaltubo. Photo: Tako Bakradze
The minimum privatisation amount for the Qatari investment group is approximately ₾12 million ($4.49mln), while the privatisation obligations are up to ₾35 million ($13mln).
In July, the Government announced that Tskaltubo, located seven kilometres outside Kutaisi in Georgia’s western Imereti region, was expected to receive an estimated ₾500 million ($187 million) in private investment as well as “tens of millions of lari” from the Government.
Photo: Tako Bakradze
The initiative aims to transform the neglected resort into a “modern, European-level, world-class spa resort” similar to the likes of Baden-Baden in Germany and Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic.
The project envisages privatisation of 14 sanatoriums, some of which have already been sold, the Ministry of Economy has said.