By Duncan Mackay

Sochi general viewFebruary 5 - Sochi has been chosen to stage next year's G8 Summit just a few months after it hosts the 2014 Winter Olympics and Paralympics, Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced. 


The decree, published on the Kremlin website, desginated the Black Sea resort as the site of the meeting of the leaders of the Group of Eight leading industrialised nations in 2014, when Russia will hold the rotating chairmanship of the G8.

"In connection with Russia's G8 presidency in 2014, I have resolved to make the city of Sochi the venue for the 2014 G8 meeting of the heads of state and Government," said Putin in the decree.

The Group is made up of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States, while the European Union are also represented. 

It will be the first time that Russia has hosted the Summit since 2006, when it was staged in St Petersburg. 

"The reasons for choosing Sochi are obvious," said Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

The need to provide adequate infrastructure, ensure security and "make the work of the summit fruitful" had been behind the decision to choose Sochi, said Peskov.

"The infrastructure being created in Sochi for the Olympic Games is practically ready and meets those requirements," he added.

G8 summit at Camp David 2012The 2012 G8 Summit was hosted by US President Barack Obama at Camp David

Putin has appointed his chief of staff Sergei Ivanov, a former Defence Minister, to organise the G8 meeting after firing Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin from the role. 

There had been talk of holding the Summit at Skolkovo, a high-tech incubator being built just outside Moscow that had the support as an innovation hub by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who was President between 2008 and 2012.

But Putin said in December that Skolkovo was too close to Moscow and that it would not be completed in time for the G8 meeting.

Putin skipped last year's G8 Summit, hosted by US President Barack Obama at Camp David.

He had claimed he had been too busy forming a Government shortly after his inauguration to a six-year Presidential term but the decision was widely seen as a snub against the US.

This year's G8 Summit is due to be hosted by British Prime Minister David Cameron at Lough Erne, County Fermanagh, in Northern Ireland, on June 17 and 18. 

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