Russia is planning to spend $15 billion developing five new ski resorts in the country’s south eastern Caucasus mountain range, which divide Europe from Asia and include the highest peaks on the European continent.

The Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced the new resorts would be built under a public-private partnership. He hopes that building the ski centres to take advantage of the region’s natural assets will be a catalyst towards greater stability in the region which is frequently attacked by insurgents.

Rstislav Murzagulov, managing partner with Agitpro, a company providing consulting services for the project told the Moscow Times that international investors from all over the world were interested in financing the developments including the German insurer Allianz and U.S. banks JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley.

Mr Murzagulov told the paper he believes the resorts could attract five million skiers per year and compete with the best resorts in Austria.

The five resorts will occupy a total space of 4,000 hectares, with more than 800 kilometres (500 miles) of ski runs built, creating 160,000 jobs when fully operational by 2020.

Austrian company MasterConcept Consulting is working on the ski area construction is scheduled to begin in 2011.