The construction work of president Saakashvili's favorite project "Lazika city" has officially been launched. According to Georgiatoday, on September 27 Saakashvili opened the city's first building, an administrative center, which will serve for port and city administrations. During the ceremony Saakashvili spoke about the economic development of the area, stating that foreign investors will come and invest in the construction of Lazika. Georgian president also added that Lazika will be the largest city in the Black Sea coast of the country. Lazika project located south to Anaklia, a sea resort right to the south of breakaway Abkhazia and north of Kulevi. Currently, Batumi and Poti ports can only accommodate maximum 250 containers. It is expected that Lazika port will receive its first freighters in autumn 2014. Saakashvili unveiled the project last year. Ten years from now, President Mikheil Saakashvili said, Lazika will be Georgia's second-largest city after Tbilisi, which has a population of about 1.5 million, and a leading Black Sea trading hub. The government of Georgia has already been in talks with several large investment groups in Asia and Europe to attract interest from investors. ? Much criticism has been voiced regarding to the project, with many of them also pointing out the potential to harm the flora and fauna of the Kolkheti National Park, which lies adjacent to the selected area.? According to Commersant, if "Georgian Dream" coalition comes into power, it is not going to continue to build Lazika. The construction of the new city is planned between Anaklia and Kulevi. Kolkheti National Park is located in this territory. Caucasus Environmental Network announces that the construction of the new city will be a threat to Kolkheti National Park. Besides, negotiations regarding construction of hotels in Lazika are being held with several groups of investors. P.S. During the parliamentary elections of Georgia on October 1, 2012, won "Bidzina Ivanishvili's - Georgian Dream" which collected 55.08% of elector's voices.

Samvel Karapetyan's Tashir Group may invest US$ 50 million in the construction of shopping malls and exhibition centers in Sochi sea passenger port, reported the "Kommersant". One of city's businessmen said to publication, that the developer is planning to build a shopping gallery, which will house luxury-brand boutiques. And the company representative Marina Gaze confirmed that recently the group has become a co-investor of Sochi port reconstruction project. As she stated, Tashir Group received 2.3 hectares of land for long-term lease. As part of reconstruction project the company intends to build more than 25 thousand square meters of real estate. Boutique galleries will occupy about 7.5 thousand square meters, a multifunctional complex with retail and office space - 6.7 thousand square meters and the exhibition center will occupy 11.5 thousand square meters. Tashir Group didn't disclose the amount of project investment, but experts estimated it about US$ 50 million. According to the publication, the construction financing will proceed from the sale of company's real estate in Moscow.

Christchurch New Zealand will be the home of one of the world's most bizarre building projects of 2012, a Cathedral made from cardboard. According to Church official website, work will start next week on a US$ 4.1 million temporary "Cardboard Cathedral" in Christchurch city center to replace the cathedral which was irreversibly damaged in last year's earthquake. The Cathedral will be fashioned from cardboard tubes, as well as timber beams and structural steel, and is expected to last 20 years. It is the largest "emergency structure" to be designed by Shigeru Ban who, with the support of associate architect Yoshie Narimatsu, has contributed his time free of charge and gifted the building's design to the cathedral, Anglican Diocese and city. Ban, known as "an emergency architect" who has built temporary houses in post-disaster centers, including Japan, Turkey, China, Italy, and Haiti said cardboard was the ideal building product for the new cathedral. "The strength of the building has nothing to do with the strength of the material," he said. Even concrete buildings can be destroyed by earthquakes very easily. But paper buildings cannot be destroyed by earthquakes. It's also consistently low-cost. Normally after disasters the price of building materials goes higher, but since this is not a traditional building material, it's very easy to get. Holmes Consulting structural engineer Jamie McGregor is pleased to be taking part in the construction. "It's not hard to motivate yourself. It's very exciting too to be involved in something like this, it's a great building it's going to be really cool. This thing's 25 meter high and it's very light so there are a lot of issues to work through, in terms of the construction method," Mr McGregor says. "It's going to take everything we've got I think." As for the old cathedral, it's still sitting half torn down in the city center. The High Court's due to make a decision on its fate next month. The Christchurch cardboard Cathedral is in inventive and inspirational project which has the potential to become an iconic landmark for Christchurch's imminent recovery.

Russian "Itera" group has completed the erection of the monolithic frame of high-rise residential complex "Sail", which is situated in the center of Minsk. According to holding's press realize Belarus first skyscraper will be completed in 2013. To date the height of the building is 118.1 meters, which is already height record for high-rises in Belarus. Earlier was reported, that the building, which includes 204 apartments, will reach 133 meters in height with spire. The residential high-rise "Sail" is a part of multifunctional complex on Maxim Tank Street. The first 4 floors of the building will occupy administrative and commercial premises. The last 4 floors will occupy four duplex penthouses. The "Sail" also provide apartments, offices, sport center and underground parking. Apartment floor areas will range from 61 to179 square meters with 3 meters ceiling height. "Itera" holding consists of dozen companies from CIS, Baltic States, Western Europe Asia countries and from USA. Company's main line is the gas-business. Company's other strategic directions are real estate development, gas chemistry and energy.

Nearly 43 percent of all construction projects in the Arabian Gulf region are on hold as the fallout from the global economic downturn continues to bite. New figures from Middle East property intelligence website BNC Network show that of the US$ 1.68 trillion of construction projects in the region, US $ 735 billion worth of them are on hold, reported The National. Such projects make up a greater proportion of the schemes in the region than those at any other stage of construction, the report said. Researchers found a total of US$ 490 billion of schemes in the region were currently under construction. Projects worth US$ 81 billion were in the tendering phase, while projects worth US$ 124,6 billion were in the design phase. In addition, US$ 264 billion worth of projects was in the initial planning and concept phase. The UAE accounted for the Gulf's largest construction project market - with projects totaling US$ 681 billion by value. Of these, 62 percent or US$ 422 billion were on hold. The total value of building projects in Saudi Arabia, the second-largest Gulf construction market, was more than US$ 461 billion. Of these 22.4 percent or US$ 103,2 billion were on hold. This was followed by Kuwait, where the total value of projects reached US$ 195 billion, including 31.4 percent or US$ 61,2 billion worth of projects currently on hold or cancelled. Qatar, which has won the bid to host the FIFA World Cup in 2022, ranks fourth in the region with a total value of projects exceeding US$ 170,2 billion. Of these, 40.3 percent or US$ 68, 6 billion worth are on hold. But despite the economic slowdown caused by the global financial crisis in 2008-09, the Gulf region still remains one of the largest construction markets in the world after China, where several large-scale projects are still on track, according to Ben D'Souza, the chief operating officer of BNC Network. But another figures published by the building consultancy EC Harris show the Middle East is still the most straightforward emerging market for global retailers to set up shop. EC Harris ranked Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE the eighth, 11th and 15th easiest markets internationally for international retailers to expand into from a property perspective - far higher than both China and India. The company measured the world's top 40 countries for developing and leasing retail property by measuring the quality of their transport infrastructure, capability of their construction supply chain and their supporting legal framework. According to the property consultancy Jones Lang LaSalle, the amount of retail space in Abu Dhabi is set to increase by 41 percent over the next two years, from 1.68 million square meters in the second quarter of this year to 2.37 million square meters as a series of new shopping centers - including Aldar's 235,000 square meters Yas Island mega mall - hit the market.