QATAR TO BUILD FIRST-CLASS RETAIL & RESIDENTIAL COMPLEX IN

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 DUSHANBE 001059 SENSITIVE SIPDIS DEPT FOR SCA/CEN E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: ECON EINV PREL EAID TI QA SUBJECT: QATAR TO BUILD FIRST-CLASS RETAIL & RESIDENTIAL COMPLEX IN DUSHANBE. REALLY? DUSHANBE 00001059 001.2 OF 003 ¶1. (SBU) Summary: Qatari Diar Real Estate Investment Company in Tajikistan recently announced plans to build a large office, retail and residential development in central Dushanbe. Office Manager Manuchehr Kurbonali said the project is the result of direct talks between President Rahmon and the Emir of Qatar in ¶2007. Kurbonali said corruption in Tajikistan was endemic at all levels, not only among government officials but international financial institutions and international organizations as well. Bidding on projects was rigged to extract bribes from bidders. Rahmon's deep personal interest in the Qatari project would make it the "cleanest development in Tajikistan," Kurbonali said. End summary. ¶2. (U) On August 27 the Qatari Diar Real Estate Investment Company held a joint presentation with the Tajik government, led by President Rahmon, to announce the construction of a large office, retail, and residential development in central Dushanbe. The "Diar Dushanbe" project first emerged in 2007, after President Rahmon met for the first time with Qatari leader Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani. Qatari Diar, whose General Director is Ghanim bin Saad al-Saad, is wholly owned by the Qatari government. The $180 million Dushanbe development will include five residential apartment buildings ranging from 10 to 16 stories, one 127-room hotel (some twenty rooms will be reserved for hotel staff),three office buildings, and 7,110 square meters of retail space. Construction will proceed in three phases. In Phase One, to begin in the first quarter of 2010 and last four or five months, the hotel and one of the residential towers will be built. In Phase Two additional residential towers and retail space will be added. The rest of the development will be completed in Phase Three. Timelines for the final two phases have not been set. There are informal plans to build a Qatari embassy and open a Qatari bank branch on the site. Plans to build a large mosque are more vague and separate from the Diar project. ¶3. (SBU) According to Manuchehr Kurbonali, the Tajik citizen who heads Qatari Diar's office in Dushanbe, while the Qatari government certainly intends to make a profit from the residential and commercial space it sells in Diar Dushanbe, 
there are less economic motivations at work as well. Kurbonali said first and foremost these involve personal ties between the Qatari leader and President Rahmon. "When the Emir gives his word to fund a project, he will do it no matter the economic consequences," Kurbonali said. "He is wealthy enough not to worry about the economics." He speculated to Embassy staff in a September 2 meeting that the Qatari government might also be interested in gaining a foothold in Central Asia. A Foothold on a Sinking Ship? ¶4. (SBU) Given that Dushanbe is a relatively small, poor city with almost no tourism industry or foreign business travelers, the rationale behind constructing a new top-end hotel here is questionable -- all the more so since there are three existing five-star projects: the recently-completed Hyatt, owned by Russian aluminum giant Rusal; the soon-to-open Serena, being built by the Aga Khan; and the Ismoili Somoni, with financing from President Rahmon's brother-in-law, Hasan Asadullozoda. Even now, as the sole operating five star hotel, the Hyatt is very underbooked. Kurbonali said that the Diar Dushanbe hotel, which would be managed by a reputable international chain that has not yet been determined, had a competitive advantage over the other properties, since it would be part of a larger retail complex that would be more appealing to travelers. He also said that the other hotels were being built for questionable reasons. The Hyatt, for example, was built simply to launder money. "That hotel could have been built for $30 million. The fact that it cost $150 million indicates to me that its purpose was to launder money." Rahmon Chomping at Bit ¶5. (SBU) Kurbonali said President Rahmon had taken an active DUSHANBE 00001059 002.2 OF 003 personal interest in the project. Rahmon would be able to see the development from his desk in the newly-built Presidential Palace, and he intended to monitor its progress daily. (Kurbonali added that the height of the residential towers was established so they would be lower than the Presidential Palace.) Rahmon may have unrealistic expectations for Diar Dushanbe's completion. At the August 27 press conference, it was reported that the whole development would be completed within one and a half years. According to Kurbonali, however, the President made this figure up out of thin air, announcing it in front of the microphones without consulting anyone first. Before Qatari Diar could set the record straight, the discussion had moved on to other topics, and media reported the uncorrected figure. Kurbonali said that, apart from Phase One, no deadlines had yet been set for the development, although it would certainly take longer than 18 months to complete. An Inside View of Corruption in Tajikistan ¶6. (SBU) The Diar Dushanbe project was likely to be the "least corrupt in Tajikistan," because of the President's personal interest and involvement in it, according to Kurbonali. "No one will play any games" with this development, he said. He acknowledged, however, that corruption was a serious problem in Tajikistan, and he shared some examples of how payoffs and kickbacks worked for large projects. Kurbonali worked last year in the project implementation unit for the Ministry of Health, which was putting out bids for a new hospital in Dangara, the President's hometown in the south of Tajikistan. He saw firsthand how the project manager in the Ministry informed bidders how much to inflate their tenders in order to make kickbacks to her. Since the project was receiving international financing, all involved viewed it as a win-win scenario. ¶7. (SBU) After seven years working with the Belgium-based medical supply company MedConcept, Kurbonali recently set off on his own in the same field, founding Avrocom, LLC. He said a recent contract was put out for bid in Tajikistan's northern Sughd region to outfit a diagnostic center. The project required about $3.5 million worth of work, yet he heard from contacts in the Ministry of Health that Siemens was likely to win the contract with an $8 million bid. Kurbonali believed the remaining $4.5 million was being siphoned off as kickbacks. Although Avrocom was not in a position to bid on the project, Kurbonali asked a reputable Danish firm with whom he had a connection to consider putting in a bid, just so that Siemens was not uncontested. He had no doubt that Siemens would get the award based on disqualification of the Danish firm on a technicality. Kurbonali noted that Siemens had recently been banned from bidding on World Bank projects because of corrupt practices. (Note: While Kurbonali implied that the ban originated in Russia, the World Bank in fact placed a two-year moratorium on contracting with the German company on projects in Bangladesh. End note.) ¶8. (SBU) When asked what could realistically be done to curb corruption in Tajikistan, Kurbonali said he had had the idea to set up a website that documented corrupt practices, naming names and providing information to businesspeople. The website, if it had enough visibility, could not only make it more difficult for corrupt officials to operate by "naming and shaming" them, but it would also provide a service to businesses interested in navigating through the bureaucracy. Kurbonali said such a website would have to be operated offshore, and several shields would have to be used to hide the identity of its operators. He said this would not be difficult, however. The company could be set up in Panama, for instance, and registered to Panamanian citizens. These citizens could give power of attorney to the de facto operators. On the technical side, the website would operate through multiple mirror sites, so that the government could not shut it down in Tajikistan. Kurbonali said such a site would be popular enough that it would generate respectable advertising revenue. ¶9. (SBU) Comment: Despite the government's and Qatari Diar's enthusiasm, there are a number of aspects about the Diar DUSHANBE 00001059 003.2 OF 003 Dushanbe project that do not make sense. The city doesn't need another five-star hotel, nor is it clear that it has enough wealthy inhabitants to buy residential units, or that contractors can be found to complete the project to specifications. Dushanbe has a history of big plans that never happen, including a Turkish water park, state-of-the art cotton processing centers, and fancy malls. Perhaps even more questionable is Kurbonali's claim that, as a result of the President's personal involvement, Diar Dushanbe will be the cleanest project in Tajikistan. The President has also been personally involved in the Hyatt, Serena, and Somoni hotels, as well as the massive Palace of the Nation project -- yet by Kurbonali's own admission at least one of those projects was mired in corruption. Expatriates overseeing these developments have also complained to us on numerous occasions of endemic corruption which delays their completion. End comment. QUAST