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Danang suffering from boom town hangover
Just two years ago this central coastal metropolis of some 850,000 people was being touted as the next boom beach-town. Thousands of mainly poor locals were cleared off their seafront tracts to make way for the five-star resorts which were supposed to replace them.
Today, it is a very different story.
Tourism is down across the board and many of the high-end developments that should be up and running lay dormant behind their 2m high construction walls.
A dozen or so multi-million dollar infrastructure projects inside Danang have also ground to a halt.
While other towns throughout the country are having problems relocating people in order for projects to go ahead, in Danang the land has been ready for years. Unfortunately the developers have not.
It is the planned beachfront villas and apartments running along the Son Tra peninsula on the way to Hoi An - which were handed prime beachfront property - that were supposed to kick start the economy and provide jobs for thousands in Vietnam’s once promising tourism industry.
In another sign that the country’s business papers may have been premature when they were heralding a new day for Vietnam’s fourth largest city, the $325 million Capital Square and the $100 million Han Riverside complex have yet to get underway.
The South Korean-backed $87 million Deawon apartment building, which was licensed in 2005, is still nothing more than a vacant lot.
Ngu Hanh Son District People’s Committee Deputy Chairman Huynh Duc Dinh, said local authorities had backed the developers by giving them the choice spots in the city and along the coast, but were beginning to question those decisions following the impact on peoples’ lives and the lack of progress at the sites.
He said the district has asked the municipal government to check the progress at sites and revoke the licenses of tardy projects if necessary.
The city licensed 157 projects worth US$2.6 billion this year, but only 95 of them are underway, according to municipal People’s Committee.
sbv
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