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New hope for long-delayed tourism project
Southern Ba Ria – Vung Tau provincial authorities are planning to grant the first 443 square kilometers of land for a U.S. investor to kick start its long-delayed US$4.1 billion tourism project in the province.
Le Kim Huong, director of the province’s Department of Planning and Investment, told Tuoi Tre newspaper the first phase of the land granting process for the U.S.-invested Saigon Atlantis tourism complex would start this month.
It is eight months later than local authorities’ originally commitment to U.S.-based Winvest Investment LLC Group, the project’s developer, the first 100 hectares of land by the first quarter of 2009 to start the project.
Winvest Investment had earlier planned to start work on the project early this year on an area of 307 hectares and 610 hectares of sea encroaching a resort in Vung Tau City.
In 2006, the company received a license to build the project with the registered investment capital of US$300 million and early this year, the U.S. firm raised its investment capital into the project to $4.1 billion.
But the project has yet got off the ground due to slow land clearance.
During the period 2007-2008, Winvest Investment had spent about $6 million on land prepayment, helping the province speed up the land clearance process, The Saigon Times Daily reported.
The complex, expected to take six years to complete, includes the five-star Saigon Atlantis Hotel with 8,000 rooms, luxury villas, an 18-hole golf course, recreational facilities, hospital, convention centers, shopping centers, restaurants and an amusement park.
Hong Nguyen
vietnamplus
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