Doubts mount over viability of the US$10b casino punter

Doubts mount over viability of the US$10b casino punter 23-FEB-2008 Intellasia | 21/Feb/2008 Tuoi Tre Feb 23, 2008 - 7:06:00 AM

People are talking busily about a project on building Dragon Beach Casino Resort in Quang Nam province worth up to US$10 billion in a proposed investment by American investors. Many experts are doubtful about financial capacity of these US investors for such a mammoth project. According to Quang Nam province's People's Committee, the Dragon Beach Casino Resort consists of a luxury sea tourism complex, including hotels, casinos, trade centres, an international conference centre and entertainment areas, which will cover an area of 460 hectares. Of this, 60 hectares will be reserved for a resettlement area, while the other 400 hectares will be reserved for 11 major construction works, including hotels with casinos (200 hectares, nine hotels-US$9 billion), an international conference centre (30 hectares, US$400 million), luxury hotels (20 hectares, US$140 million), golf course, sports complex (20 hectares, US$100 million), trade centre (20 hectares, US$140 million). The whole project will be invested by the US-based Global C&D Inc and the US-based Tano Capital and Spring Investment. Vo Ta Han, senior consultant of the Swiss UBS AG in Singapore, said that when Vietnam issued international bonds worth US$750 million, the country had to well prepare in order to persuade foreign investors. Thus, it is illogical to hear that some people will spend billions of US dollars easily. " Vietnam's authorities, when working with giant partners, should ask them to prove their financial capacity first. According to Quang Nam province, the investors have committed to focus on building a high-quality resettlement area in the first phase of the project. Every household in the project area will be granted for free a two-story house with total area of 150 square meters, and have at least one member recruited for the Dragon Beach Casino Resort. The investors have committed to complete the infrastructure system before building construction items. . Quang Nam province's People's Committee confirmed that they have already met the investors and seen this project highly feasible and suitable with the province's tourism, service development plan. "If the project is developed, it will actively contribute to the socio-economic development of the province and the whole central region," said the committee. However, an official who is specialised in appraising foreign invested projects and has ever read the document submitted to the prime minister by the Quang Nam province's People's Committee, said that the document about the multi-billion US dollar project is too spare. "If the prime minister approves, he will base on opinions from relevant ministries, agencies. I have not yet seen opinions of any ministry," said the official. Quang Nam province According to sources of news from Tuoi Tre newspaper, Global C&D registers business in Nevada, US on October 21, 2005 with registered capital of US$100,000. The company's director cum chairman is Tong Ich Pham. Laws of Nevada do not strictly regulate registered capital, hence, businesses can register any figure. Global C&D does not have an official website. In addition to information about the project in Quang Nam province, there is not any information about other activities of Global C&D on Google. This is abnormal because the US companies often have their own website for their business transactions. The email of the company's director registered at Quang Nam's People's Committee is a public address using yahoo while foreign professional businesses, particularly in the US, often use their own companies' email addresses. The website of Tano Capital, co-investor of the project, shows the contact address in Hoi An township, Vietnam. However, in an interview in October 2007 posted on the website, Charles Johnson, founder of Tano Capital, said his company is managing US$200 million of which the company has invested US$40 million into China and a similar amount into India. Thus, this company's capital by the end of 2007 did not reach half of one billion of US dollar. A recent email of Tong Ich Pham, director cum chairman of Global C&D, said that "we are now working with Quang Nam province. There remains many delicate issues, which have not yet been clear. We will disclose all details of the project soon when having good hope."