Russian citizens bought real estate worth $245 million in Australia last year, Australia's Foreign Investment Review Board said on Tuesday.
Russians ranked sixteenth in a list of buyers of Australian property last year, the board said in its report. The top three buyer nations are U.K. citizens in first place, spending $4.6 billion, the Chinese in second with $4.09 billion and U.S. citizens third with property purchases worth $3.4 billion.
Non-residents of Australia purchased property worth of total $41.513 billion last year, double the figure for 2010.
Russian investment in property abroad will amount to $12 billion in 2012, almost the same volume as last year, Gordon Rock international real estate agency has forecast.