Delays dog resort projects

Beaches in Cam Ranh remain pristine

Since 2003, when the Cam Ranh peninsula development strategy was approved, the whole northern part of the peninsula in Khanh Hoa province, covering 1,253 hectares, has been fully occupied with 32 resort projects.

Vo Tan Thai, director of the Planning and Investment Department of Khanh Hoa province, said developers of these projects faced big hurdles in implementation.

Thai said six projects would be revoked soon, due to the developers not pouring further capital into construction.

Another reason for the delay, was due to land clearance and compensation problems.

The developers of the $100 million Mirax Cam Ranh Resort are struggling with disputes with local residents, on the land compensation value. Given a licence in 2008, this project has yet to start building.

Another project to build a $200 million six-star resort in the north of Cam Ranh peninsula, disputes have raised between its developers - the domestic Bao Lam Investment JSC and its financial supporter. This resulted in the local authority recently revoking its licence.

A new certificate for this project, Thai said, would be considered for Bao Lam, the domestic partner of the project if it proved that it has enough capacity to implement this project.

Meanwhile, construction has been very slow in the Manna Luxury Holiday Resort project, developed by Gold Coast Limited Company and Israel’s Rafaeli Group.

With an investment of VND350 billion ($17 million) the project is expected to be completed by 2014, but the progress is slow.

In southern Ba Ria-Vung Tau province, the $4.1 billion Saigon Atlantis Hotel project developed by Winvest LLC,  remains at the land clearance and compensation stage.

The $4 billion Nam Hoi An Resort in Quang Nam province is also in a hole, after Malaysia’s Genting Malaysia Berhad declared its withdrawal in September last year and the remaining investor in the joint venture,  VinaCapital,  has not found a new partner.

Meanwhile, Binh Dinh province has also issued a red warning for two tourism projects, Hon Ngoc Viet ($125 million) and Vinh Hoi Resort ($ 250 million) due to no construction on their sites.

Circumstances are even worse in Phu Quoc, the present poster boy of Vietnamese tourism and the second home market. Only 20 projects of the total of 257 registered projects have been implemented on the island.