State to push stalled Northbridge project in the arm

The project has been spearheaded by the Northbridge Development Joint Venture Company, an entity comprised of Thailand’s Northbridge Community Limited and Hanoi’s Construction Company No. 9. The Vietnamese partner has contributed 40 per cent of investment capital in the form of land use right.
The Northbridge plan envisages developing 86 hectares of land to build housing, a commercial centre and other facilities in Kim Chung commune, Dong Anh district, north of the capital’s Thang Long bridge.
Nghiem Xuan Dat, director of the Hanoi Authority for Planning and Investment (HAPI), told Vietnam Investment Review last week that the authorities needed to know if promoters of the $236-million project had deposited enough money for land compensation to proceed uninterrupted.
“The amount should range between $32 million and $45 million,” he said.
Furthermore, the authorities requested that the investors make plans for vocational training and employment for the hundreds of local farmers that would lose their livelihoods after giving up land for the project.
“These plans must be put down on paper to show people in the area,” Dat said, reflecting the anxiety of local authorities.
The joint venture first received a licence for the project in January 1997. However, due to the regional financial crisis that year, it was shelved until 2002 when the two partners resumed discussions.
In May last year, the investors, with a new business plan and updated financial capability, requested permission to restart the project and received it three months later from the Ministry of PLanning and Investment.
But now they are complaining that the resumption is being held up because the district People’s Committee is demanding a letter from the chairman of the Hanoi People’s Committee allowing the restart.
A similar demand was made by Hanoi’s chief architect, the relevant authority to appraise the revised master.
However, the letter has so far not been issued, although a full year has passed. Two weeks ago, Northbridge made a second request for the letter to the Hanoi People’s Committee chairman, Nguyen Quoc Trieu, with copies to various government officials, including deputy prime minister Vu Khoan.
The joint venture is also complaining that for the past 10 months they have been incurring interest on the over $6 million they borrowed for land compensation and have been unable to disburse.
However, HAPI’s Dat said that the sum was relatively small considering the amount needed for compensating the entire 86-ha site.
He also expressed concern about the possibility of the investors running out of money after 15 or 20 hectares were cleared, resulting in a discontinuation of the compensation process.
“Then the situation will become very complicated,” he said, referring to several property projects facing similar problems.
Dat also assured that administrative procedures at Dong Anh district and the concerned agencies in Hanoi would not be a problem if the investors could prove their financial soundness.
“We have even planned to open a bus route to the area to support the development of the project,” he said.