Russia´s JSC Inteco sets sights on other European markets

Russian investor and developer JSC Inteco is setting its sights on growth outside its home market, vice president Oleg Soloshchansky told PropertyEU at EXPO REAL. In addition to developing housing in its home market - which is characterised by a chronic shortage of housing against a backdrop of out-of-date equipment - the Russian developer is now expanding into Kazakhstan, the Czech Republic, Austria and Morocco.

One of the developer´s key aims is to provide housing stock that is both cost-effective to build and also affordable, Soloshchansky said.'We are now talking about a one-bedroom flat for around RUB 1 mln – that´s the price of a cheap car. This is the right direction for Russia to take,´ he said. Ít is about understanding what the market wants. It´s not enough to be úp-to-date´ today - we need to be up-to-date tomorrow, too,´ he said.

Soloshchanksy is also training up his staff to finely hone buildings to tough European standards by sending them to markets such as Germany to learn about construction. 'For a German, 1 mm is not something you can mess with or change. Sometimes, in Russia, if it´s 2 mm instead, people think it´s not a big difference. But it´s important to understand why a measurement is what it is.

Inteco has between $700 mln and $800 mln of projects underway in Russia at the moment. It has an additional $40 mln invested in markets such as Morocco and Kazakhstan, including residential stock and a hotel component in Morocco.

For reknowned Spanish architect Ricardo Bofill, who is working with Inteco in Russia, there are a number of challenges associated with building there, not least the temperature which can drop to minus 30 degrees in winter, making construction challenging. ´People in Russia have a different life philosophy now, they want to live differently. We´re trying to cater to that,´ he said.