Lam Dong’s indolent tourism projects

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The Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) has unveiled tourism property inspection results in the province which featured massive licencing against poor performance.  

The province has some mega projects like Royal City occupying 683 hectares, Madagui forest resort 601ha and Golden Key eco-tourism project on 468ha. There have been 37 large-scale projects in total with land areas averaging 100 to 700ha each.

Most tourism property projects in the province got investment licences from 2007 to 2009. Particularly, in 2007 Lam Dong ratified 27 projects worth over VND4 trillion ($190.4 million) in total registered capital. In 2008, 57 projects got licences worth more than VND17 trillion ($810 million).

Corresponding figures for 2009 were 33 licenced projects with a total capitalisation of VND6.8 trillion ($323.8 million). During these three years, the province gave the nod to 117 tourism property projects valued at over VND27.8 trillion ($1.32 billion).

However, aggressive licencing came against trivial implementation results.

The Da Teh Lake eco-resort, developed by Minh Nhat Tourism Services, was licenced in 2009, but until present the 534ha, $8 million resort project was neither planned nor having an environmental impact assessment report completed.

The Bao Loc golf course and resort complex, developed by Jinsung Vina Construction Company Limited, got an investment licence in December 2007. However, the 250ha, $18 million project still sits on the drawing board.

Inspection results also reveal developers of 34 tourism property projects could not kick-start construction though they received project land from one to three years ago. Developers of seven other projects could not start construction though they were given land over 36 months ago such as 268ha Dalat resort, 128ha Suoi Bac eco-resort or 117ha Dasar Waterfall resort projects.

Statistics show that by the end of  2010, Lam Dong was home to 144 tourism property projects with VND31.8 trillion ($1.51 billion) in total registered capital and 11,000ha land area given to investors, tantamount to 94 per cent of total registered land. However, just VND1.674 trillion ($79.7 million) was disbursed, equal to over 5 per cent.  

Just 21 out of 144 projects were put online, making up 14.6 per cent. These projects just paid a total VND124.4 billion ($6 million) to state coffers thus far.

According to MPI inspectors, the province’s poor post-licencing state management was to blame.

MPI inspectors then proposed taking back investment licences and land use rights certificates of 34 projects whose developers were given land for over a year, but could not kick-off construction as well as withdrawing licences for nine other projects not lifting off the ground. Implementation results must be forwarded to the MPI before March 2, 2012.