Newly-founded Eurasia Capital, the investment fund arm of Eurasia Logistics plans to launch a logistics-based fund for institutional investors in 2009. In an interview with PropertyEU at EXPO REAL in Munich, Eurasia Capital CEO Alexandre Kotcherguine said the fund will initially focus on logistics assets in Russia. ‘The Russian logistics market still fairly small, but it’s growing very rapidly and the demand for good warehouses is strong. Russia has seen economic growth of around 10% in recent years and even the current market turmoil is unlikely to knock off more than 2% or 3%.’ Kotcherguine also noted that the Russian government has committed to huge investments in Russia’s undeveloped road and rail infrastructure. ‘Right now, logistics is concentrated around Moscow and St. Petersburg, but the regions offer a lot of potential. Cushman and Wakefield estaimates that the Russian Logistics market will grow by 34% a year, taking it to 17 million square metres in 2001, from the current 5.3 million square metres. ‘Even though the development pipeline is pretty big, it cannot keep up with demand. We have four potential clients for every square metre we develop.’ The new fund is targeting institutional investors, suich as pension funds, soverign wealth funds and investment banks in Europe, Canada and Southeast Asia. ‘The fund will offer investment only in operational logistics assets, with tenants and a steady rental income,’ Kotcherguine said, adding that with a minimum investment of $20 mln (€14.7 mln), the company was obviously targeting major investors. Eurasia Logistics is aiming to have 10 million m[sup]2[/sup] of lettable warehousing space in the CIS region by 2012. ‘We’re not expecting investors to rush into this, given the current market turmoil, but once they take a good look at what we’re offering we’re pretty confident they’ll invesat with us,’ Kotcherguine said.