* Royal Group eyes 5-star hotel, housing, sports complexes
* Investment to boost ties between Chechnya, Muslim nations
GROZNY, Russia, April 14 (Reuters) - Abu Dhabi-based Royal Group is eyeing investments in Russia's Muslim Chechnya region including a luxury hotel and a sports complex, the Chechen government said on Thursday.
"A delegation of one of the largest construction companies of the United Arab Emirates 'Royal Group' was in Grozny recently to determine areas for the construction of a modern five-star hotel, sports facility and a housing complex," said a statement from the press service of the Chechen leadership.
Chechnya is part of a patchwork of mainly Muslim republics that make up Russia's volatile North Caucasus, home to an Islamist insurgency whose most prominent leader claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that killed 37 people at Moscow's busiest airport in January.
Its Kremlin-backed leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, had earlier asked the United Arab Emirates to invest 68.9 billion roubles ($2.44 billion) in some 17 projects, mostly hydro-electric power plants, in the province on Russia's southern border.
The Royal Group delegation toured Chechnya's capital, Grozny, before heading to the mountains surrounding the city to find a site for a potential sports facility, the statement said.
It quoted the Royal Group's manager for sports construction as saying it wanted to build a sports complex where athletes from the United Arab Emirates and other Arab countries could train for international competitions.
Royal Group was not immediately available to comment.
The investors were shown a potential 45-hectare area in Grozny for the hotel and housing complex.
The Kremlin has poured money into the North Caucasus, where unemployment in some areas exceeds 50 percent, in the hope of keeping its youth out of the insurgency. Moscow has budgeted 152 billion roubles for Chechnya from 2008-2012.
Chechen leader Kadyrov, who has spearheaded the region's drive to attract Arab investment, is credited with maintaining a shaky peace a decade after Russian troops drove separatists out of power in the second of two post-Soviet wars.
But Kadyrov's critics say he is pursuing a violent crackdown on opponents and enforcing his vision of Islam with rules that sometimes violate secular Russia's constitution. He dismisses the accusations as attempts to blacken his name. (Writing by Thomas Grove; editing by Mark Heinrich)