By Helena Bedwell

Qatari Diar Real Estate Investment Co., part of the country’s sovereign wealth fund, will consider developing tourist resorts on Georgia’s Black Sea coast.

“We’re definitely interested in economic cooperation with Georgia,” Qatari Diar Deputy Chief Executive Officer Hassan Alfadala said in an interview in Doha today. “We’re interested in developing resorts,” he said, adding that company officials will travel to Georgia in about a week.

Qatari Diar, founded in 2004, has about $30 billion of projects under way outside Qatar in more than 20 countries, according to a company presentation in Doha for Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and other officials.

Georgia’s $12.8 billion economy suffered about $1 billion in damage when its U.S.-trained army was routed by Russia in an August 2008 war over the separatist Georgian region of South Ossetia. The country won pledges of $4.55 billion in international aid in the wake of the conflict, including a two- year $1 billion offer by the U.S.

The International Monetary Fund said in May that Georgia’s economic performance this year largely depends on donor money. The government forecasts a contraction of 1.5 percent in 2009 and 2 percent growth in 2010.

“To achieve 2 percent growth next year, we’ll need no less than $2 billion in foreign investment,” Saakashvili said in an interview in Doha. “That’s why I’m here. I’m sure this goal is realistic.”

Georgia’s 2009 foreign investment won’t exceed $1 billion, compared with $2 billion initially forecast by the government, Finance Minister Kakha Baindurashvili said on Oct. 6.

Eka Sharashidze, Saakashvili’s chief of staff, said the Georgian government plans to show Qatari Diar a 300 hectare site at Gonio on the Black Sea coast for possible development, as well as other coastal projects that are already in the design phase and stalled projects in the capital Tbilisi.

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