The governor of Rostov Region, Vasiliy Golubev, sent a request to the chairman of the State Duma, Boris Gryzlov, to keep the region on the list of gambling zones, RIA Novosti reports, citing a spokesman of the region's Ministry of Economy.
One of the Russian gambling zones, ‘Azov-City’, is being constructed on the border between Krasnodar Territory and Rostov Region. A week ago the authorities of Rostov Region proposed moving the zone to a free territory on the Black Sea coast of Russia for better economic efficiency. An amendment was introduced to the law on gambling, excluding Rostov Region from the list of gambling territories.
Moving the gambling zone would lead to financial losses to the local budget and would have a negative effect on the investment image.
Advisory letters have been sent to 15 deputies of the State Duma from Rostov Region urging the amendment not to be passed.
According to the administration of Rostov Region, the region spent approximately 400 million rubles on gambling infrastructure and plans to spend 90 million rubles more. An investor from Kazan ‘Pak-Express’ is already constructing the Rostov part of ‘Azov-City’ and plans to launch a reacreation complex in December this year. The authorities said that they plan to finish construction of the engineering and transport infrastructure of Rostov part of ‘Azov-City’. In November 2008 the Rostov part finished construction of a high-voltage power line.
