The premier hotel in the South Pacific for the first half of the 20th century, Suva's Grand Pacific, has been sold to a Chinese state-owned hotel corporation for 12 million US dollars.
The hotel was bought by the Nauru government in the early 1990s which closed it down and left it in a derelict condition and an eyesore on the Suva waterfront because of lack of money.
The Fiji government forced Nauru to sell the property back and the state-owned Fiji Investment Corporation has now sold the heritage-listed property to the Janfull Corporation.
The chairman of Fiji Investment Corporation, Joe Mar, says Janfull will have majority ownership in a joint venture and will run and operate the re-developed hotel when it is opened in 2007.
Janfull specialises in Chinese tourists travelling to other parts of the world.
