Local authorities hope purchase of Hotel Zagorje will be completed

The prefect of Krapina-Zagorje County, Zeljko Kolar, and the mayor of Kumrovec, Robert Splajt, expressed hope on Friday that the Zhongya Nekretnine company would complete the purchase of a communist-era political school in Kumrovec after it failed to pay the remaining amount by December 31.

Kolar said he had requested an opinion from the Ministry of State Assets and information from the company's executive Mario Rendulic about the payment of the remaining amount by Chinese investor Jiang Yu.

"As long as we don't have an official confirmation from the Ministry whether Ms Yu has made the payment or not, I cannot comment," Kolar told Hina, recalling that an initial amount had been paid for the ground and a downpayment for the building.

"I'm not sure what it would mean if she paid for the ground without purchasing the building. What would she do with the ground? As I already said, if Ms Yu doesn't make the payment for the school building itself, she will close all the doors in Croatia to herself as an investor," Kolar said, adding that he would be very disappointed if the investment in the reconstruction and conversion of the building for tourism purposes failed.

Splajt said he hoped the payment issue would be settled soon. "If they bought 27,000 square metres of land surrounding the school building for HRK 1.1 million and paid the tax, which means they have already spent HRK 2.2 million, they will certainly not give up," he said.

He said that things had become complicated in China because of a trade war between the United States and China. "We cannot do anything about that. But this will be sorted out for sure. These people haven't invested two million kuna to give up now," Splajt concluded.

Zhongya Nekretnine failed to pay the remaining amount for the purchase of the Hotel Zagorje, a Communist-era political school in Kumrovec, about 60 kilometres northwest of Zagreb, by December 31 after earlier depositing a guarantee of HRK 598,000. The company says that partners of the investor Jiang Yu have not done so for technical reasons, adding that the Chinese government has been actively monitoring capital transfers out of China.

(€1 = HRK 7.44)

(Hina/FaH)

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