Foreign firm gets in on the cemetery business

August 22, 2011 | 16:15

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The Malaysian firm Fairy Park Group started operating a cemetery in the southern province of Tay Ninh on August 20.

Cemetery gate in Tay Ninh

The company has been given a 50-year licence to operate the grounds, which will be the first foreign-invested cemetery in Vietnam.

The firm invested on construction of the project. The cemetery claims that their method of burial is more environmentally friendly, because the tombs are sealed with composite. It will also house a waste water treatment system as well as modern incinerators.

Fairy Park’s general director Hua Quoc Dong said the park is designed to cover 75 hectares in Truong Tho Hamlet, Truong Hoa Commune. In the first phase it will occupy 14 hectares and include 5,000 tombs and over 8,000 places to store remains.

It is designed after Fairy Park's model in Malaysia, to include green spaces and streams, Dong said.

The price for a single tomb starts at VND75.5 million ($3,662), while a family tomb would run up to VND558 million ($27,067).

In Vietnam, as in some other cultures, human remains are exhumed after a certain period, then reburied following certain traditional rites.

In this cemetery, a final resting place is will cost VND16-50 million ($776-2.425). But the price of an exhumation would be VND53.6 million ($2,600).

SGTT

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