State-owned Vietnam Construction Import-Export Corporation (Vinaconex) is moving ahead with a project to build a US$600 million tourism urban zone on Cat Ba Island off the coast of the northern city of Haiphong. This is considered the first tourism urban zone to be set up in Vietnam, which is expected to be an impetus to promote tourism on Cat Ba Island, already a place of interest, according to the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism.
One of the biggest projects in Vietnam
The 171-ha tourism zone, belonging to Cai Gia bay of the Cat Ba Island-Ha Long Bay complex, consists of various facilities, including four villa areas with 1,000 villas, resorts, three-and-five-star hotels, entertainment centre, international conference centre, Tung Thu national aquarium and beaches, yacht clubs and sports areas.
Tran Ngoc Quang, director of the project management board said, “The detailed 1/500 plan of the project was already approved by the Hai Phong People’s Committee under Decision No.2045/QQÄ-UB dated 1 September 2005. Land clearance has been completed. At present, Vinaconex has been fulfilling Phase I-A of the project with 10ha scale. This is the resort in Cat Ba Island with 102 villas, sport area and beautiful beaches nearby. Vinaconex is now building infrastructure for the whole project and it is estimated to be complete in 2010.”
While implementing the project, the state will carry out a lot of infrastructure projects supporting the development of Cat Ba tourism, including Highway No 5B, Dinh Vu Bridge, and the cross-island road. It will take only two hours to travel from Hanoi to Cat Ba.
The investor has completed site clearance and is preparing to build the first facilities of the tourism urban zone on an area of ten hectares. The zone will provide two new beaches for Cat Ba, create an international wharf, making Vietnam a stopover on the yacht itinerary from Hong Kong to Singapore.
Once the project becomes operational, it will create a new centre which has a surface area and population equivalent to that of the existing Cat Ba town. This will become a new tourism centre of Cat Ba, turning Cat Ba into a luxurious tourism point, which can be compared to other famous regional destinations, said Mr Quang.
Vinaconex is preparing to establish a joint stock company, which will gather many big investors, including banks and economic groups. The corporation will also call for investment cooperation in the tourism urban zone.
Benefits for Investors
Mr Quang said, “Investors will get the benefits a big project with a complex combination of wonderful natural beauty of both the sea and forest ecology, and service diversification featuring conferences, sports, mountain climbing, and all kinds of tourism.”
Simple, quick and open investment incentive procedures of Vietnam’s Government are offered for investors, such as exemption of land use fees and land use tax, advantages in corporate income tax and other advantages.
Investors shall also get benefits and bear a very low initial investing cost compared with other real estate projects’ in Vietnam, because of the many preferential treatments of the Government, relevant bodies and Hai Phong People’s Committee.
Tourism infrastructure in Cat Ba Island is uncultivated and this is an advantage and a golden chance for investors to pioneer investment in building tourism infrastructure to exploit tourist services here. Cat Ba Island is planned to become a unique national ecological tourism area in Vietnam and the Government is focusing on infrastructure investment in Hai Phong and Cat Ba Island such as roads, bridges, airports and sea ports, aiming to make Hai Phong and Cat Ba an economic and tourist centre of the whole country.
Huong Ly
Vietnamese
