Billionaire developer Aras Agalarov opened Vegas, the country's biggest mall, on Tuesday with a pledge to build two more shopping centers in Moscow in the next three years as retail spending picks up after the economic crisis.
The new projects will cost "about the same" as the 16.7 billion ruble ($540 million) Vegas complex, Agalarov said at the opening ceremony on the southeastern edge of Moscow. Vegas is 400,000 square meters, with French retailer Auchan, consumer electronics chain M.Video, Britain's Next and Spain's Inditex among its tenants, according to Agalarov's Crocus Group.
"Our Vegas mall is just a start for new projects," Emin Agalarov, the billionaire's son and Crocus commercial director, told reporters. "We are planning two more Vegas malls, and we won't stop at that."
Crocus expects to borrow from Sberbank for the projects, which may start operating in two or three years, Aras Agalarov said. Sberbank lent Crocus about 11 billion rubles for the first Vegas project.
Russia's economic recovery may be gaining pace this quarter as retail spending rose to the highest level in more than a year in April and unemployment declined to the lowest rate in four months, the State Statistics Service said May 21.
The country's annual retail sales growth may reach 4.5 percent this year and accelerate to as much as 6 percent in 2012, said Mikhail Terentyev, an analyst at Nomura Holdings in Moscow.
Billionaire Oleg Deripaska’s Basic Element will open the country's first newly built airport in 25 years on June 5, the holding company said in a statement Tuesday.
The $216 million airport in Gelendzhik, a Black Sea resort town, will handle up to 150,000 passengers a year, said Sergei Likharev, head of the holding's Basel-Aero division.