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| Investor pulls pin on luxury resort after mine licensed |
| 30-APR-2008 Intellasia | Saigon Times Daily page 4 |
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| 30 Apr, 2008 - 7:04:00 AM |
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Foreign investors have decided to cancel the Life Resorts-managed project under construction in Tien Thanh Commune, about 20 kilometres south of Phan Thiet City due to a titanium project.
"The authorities have granted a license to a mining company to do a titanium mine in exactly the same location as where our resort is planned," Chris Duffy, general director of Life Resorts Management Co explained.
Duffy told the Daily on the sidelines of Life Resorts' party for partners and friends last Friday that a tourism resort and a mining project were unable to go together so the foreign investors aborted the resort project.
More than one-year ago, the foreign investors teamed with Blue Ocean Co Ltd to break ground for the 105-room resort project on 4.6 hectares in Phan Thiet and plan to inaugurate the resort in the last quarter of 2008. However, construction of the multi million-dollar was halted when the titanium project received off ground in Tien Thanh that would cause pollution and noise, according to Blue Ocean chair Nguyen Thanh Bich.
Bich confirmed with the Daily about the cancellation at the party but said that the local partner of the 50:50 joint-venture had not received any written decision from the foreign investors.
Duffy said that though the Vietnamese partner wanted to move forward with the resort project, the foreign partner felt it was not right for an international-standard tourism resort to be near a mining project.
"Of course, we are disappointed that we cannot continue with that project," Duffy said. He furthered that the project was envisaged to become "very big, beautiful and something special in Phan Thiet."
Duffy clarified the project had been cancelled as the investors did not know whether the titanium mine would be closed after five years of exploitation as licensed. "Who knows what will happen after that."
However, Duffy disclosed that the foreign investors were looking for another location in Binh Thuan Province as they believed in tourism potential of Phan Thiet and the central coastal province.
"We will keep looking for an area in Tien Thanh and hopefully find somewhere else that is peaceful," Duffy said.
Duffy revealed life Resorts was waiting for a license to develop a resort project in the hilly town of Sapa in Lao Cai Province. "We are hoping that the investment license will be issued next month as the local authorities are very supportive."
Last year, Life Resorts teamed up with Blue Ocean Co Ltd to form a 50-50 joint venture to invest US$7-10 million in the 110-room resort on 15 hectares of hills and valleys in the town nestled high in the north-western mountains.
The project in Sapa was expected to be running 18 months after the project received off ground. But things have changed, and Life Resorts now wants to cancel the old licensed site to move to a new site, which Duffy described as "much better."
Duffy said the new site would be for a project of 95 hotel rooms and villas, and that Life Resorts would continue partnership with Blue Ocean Co Ltd for upcoming developments because "the decision for the project in Phan Thiet does not affect our relationship at all as we are close partners."
Duffy said the resort would be inaugurated in 2010, about one-year after the opening of the 52-room Life resort in Ninh Binh Province and the Life Boats in Ha Long Bay.
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