As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 3rd of January, 2020, the company Zhongya Real Estate (Nekretnine) which still hasn’t paid the remaining amount for the purchase of the controversial former Political School building in Josip Broz Tito’s hometown of Kumrovec, announced on Thursday that they had not abandoned the investment in Kumrovec.
Zhongya Real Estate said that investor partner Jiang Yu failed to allocate money to the Republic of Croatia for technical reasons within the aforementioned period. However, they say that modalities are still being found in order have the aforementioned money arrive in Croatia as soon as possible. Accordingly, they are ready for new talks with the government, and have stated that, should a new tender be announced, they will of course respond to it.
“The Chinese Government has been actively working for months to control the export of capital from the country. Part of these problems have reached Europe as well as Croatia itself in the case of a transaction related to the former Political School in Kumrovec. We’re witnessing that Chinese investments in Europe are significantly falling, and part of the reason for this is certainly the restrictions that come from officials in Beijing,” Zhongya Real Estate explained in a statement.
“Economic problems inside China and the China-US trade war are the main reasons China is trying to control the ”export” of money from out of the country. The State Administration for Foreign Currency Relations (SAFE), a key government regulator, announced in mid-December that the task for the next year is to prevent ”abnormal” capital outflows and thus prevent illegal trading activities,” Zhongya Real Estate also stated.
Zhongya Real Estate noted that “they proved their seriousness by paying the full tax amount for the purchase of the real estate (which they have not yet managed to purchase) and the surrounding land of almost 27,000 square metres. In total, both transactions are worth over one and a half million kuna, adding in the amount from the tender last spring, we reach the figure of over two million kuna which has already been paid by Chinese investors. Therefore, they say, they don’t want to give up on their planned business idea.
The statement from the company, signed by director Mario Rendulić, also said that “the Ministry of State Property announced that the decision on the fate of the Zagorje Hotel has yet to be made by the government.”
“Zhongya Real Estate d.o.o. had not paid the rest of the funds for the purchase of the Zagorje Hotel or the political school in Kumrovec by the 31st of December, 2019. The Ministry of State Property will keep the amount of 598,000.00 kuna. Given that the estimated value of the said property is more than 7.5 million kuna, the decision on further disposal of the real estate will be made by the Government of the Republic of Croatia at one of the next sessions,” the Ministry of State Property announced.
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