U.S. COMPANY TO BUILD HOTELS IN SOUTHERN CROATIAN SEAPORT

SPLIT, Sept 13 (Hina) - The administration of the southern Adriatic city of Split and the U.S. company AFCO reached an agreement on Thursday on building a number of hotels in the city harbour, which has been described as "the enterprise of the century" for Split. The city and AFCO will be equal partners in a joint limited liability company, jointly make all decisions, and work together for 40 years, after which everything that has been built will become the property of Split. Mayor Ivan Skaric and AFCO vice-president Richard R. Weidel and associates today voiced satisfaction with their harmonised views on the project. Skaric said the realisation of today's agreement now depended on the government, the owner of most of the land the hotels will be built on, as this land is treated as maritime good. Answering questions from the press, Weidel said that AFCO, established in 1993, had nothing to do with the military. He dismissed claims in the Croatian media that in Split AFCO is building hotels for U.S. troops as non-sense. These are top quality hotels where a night's stay will cost $200-500 and no army is willing to pay that much, Weidel said. He added he was familiar with resistance in the Split and Croatian public to this U.S. investment, emphasising it was an entirely private investment. According to Branko Poljanic, an AFCO task force member in charge of town planning, the company will build the hotels from Croatian architects' projects. He was resolute Split would not be turned into Las Vegas. Poljanic announced public debates on the project which he said should represent an economic and tourist revival for Split. (hina) ha sb