The project for the construction of the Fantasyland amusement park near Samobor, valued at around 200 million euros, is moving forward, but it seems that there is currently no investment from the Russian fund, and domestic banks are stepping in instead.
– For the first phase of the Fantazija water park project, a new financing model has been established, under which the project is financially syndicated by Zagrebačka banka and HBOR, and in addition to financial institutions, we had support from the Ministry of Economy, the Ministry of Tourism, and the Ministry of Entrepreneurship – says Artur Gedike, CEO of Fantazija projekt. This involves a loan of 55 million euros, which is currently in the phase of clarifying distribution within the syndicate. The model is expected to be defined within the next two to three weeks.
Regarding the contract with the Russian side, the Croatian side, says Gedike, insists on the realization of contractual obligations. Let us recall that the first phase of the Fantasyland project at the site of the former Šmidhen bathing area, whose conceptual founders and owners of the Fantazija projekt company are Slaven Čolak and Boris Šimunić, was ready for realization back in 2009, which means they had location permits for the water park and hotels.
– At that time, the realization did not commence for one exclusive reason, which was the 2.5-year obstruction by the Croatian Privatization Fund, which was then headed by Vedran Duvnjak – says Gedike, adding that even under such conditions, they signed a financing agreement in the Russian Federation for 174.1 million euros in September 2010. Financial tranches were supposed to start then, which they informed the then Croatian government about.
– As the relationship between the Republic of Croatia and the Russian Federation was unfolding at that time, it is now well known that our relationship was dependent on those trends. The realization of the contracted project is currently the subject of communication between our state institutions, including the Intergovernmental Croatian-Russian Commission for Trade, Economic, and Scientific-Technical Cooperation – says Gedike.
In April of last year, Gedike stated that the construction of the water park should begin in June, and after its completion, the construction of hotels and a sports and entertainment park would follow, and that Russian investors, speculated to be a fund partially owned by the state, were still willing to invest in this project. In the summer, land clearing began, and now the situation is such, says Gedike, that the basic preparation of the land in the water park area has been completed and the organization of the construction site has been outlined and prepared, which was carried out by the Stipić group as the main contractor.
