Greece postpones Athens Riviera casino bid deadline by a month
ATHENS, May 27 (Reuters) - Greece has given potential suitors one more month to bid for a licence to build and operate a casino resort on the Athens Riviera, the country's gaming commission said on Monday.
The commission had set a May 31 deadline for the submission of offers to build and operate a casino along with a luxury hotel, conference and recreation facilities on a sprawling disused airport in Hellenikon.
It extended the deadline to June 28, without giving a reason for the delay.
The casino licence is key to the start of an 8 billion euro project by Lamda Development backed by China's Fosun and Arab funds to turn 620 hectares of wasteland at the former Hellenikon airport into a complex of luxury homes, hotels and a yachting marina.
Beset by serious delays, Hellenikon is part of a post-bailout agreement between Athens and its international creditors and is expected to boost state coffers by hundreds of millions of euros and create thousands of jobs in the coming years. (Reporting by Angeliki Koutantou; editing by David Evans)
