Located at an area famous for its natural pristine and attractive beauty with typical ecosystem in Vietnam, Cat Ba Resort Community Project with estimated investment capital of US$600 million is expected to be the biggest luxury ecological tourism centre in Vietnam when completed.
The project has an area of approximately 172 ha in which ¼ of total area is mountain and water. The project includes villas of different area, three to five-star hotels features include a selection of dining, resting venues; on-land, underwater entertainment zones; international conference centre, boating, tourism port, commercial and trading area. The project includes various components to serve the visitors of all classes.
This is a large-scale project on tourism and urban development and located at a tourism potential rich area. The owner company is confident that the project will be not only a good investment opportunity for investors but also make contribution to the general socio-economic development of the Project Province and the Tourism Industry of Vietnam. Thus, Vinaconex- ITC is actively implementing the Project as well as working with local and international investors to select a qualified investor to implement the project in which the investor can operate in different types, i.e. association, joint venture or 100% foreign owned”.
Preparation tasks for project investment were completed, site clearance was completed. The project owner – Vinaconex ITC is strongly completing the whole infrastructure system to meet the need of secondary investors before 2010. The infrastructure of phrase IA, including villas No 4, Sport area, Tung Thu Beach 2, is ready for sales in 2008.
The client closely cooperated with specialists of Group70/Pacmar, American Consultancy Company and Vinaconex R&D on planning of tourism and entertainment areas and prepared Master Plan for this Project. Group70/Pacmar commented that Cai Gia-Cat Ba Resort Community Project when finished shall be the most modern resort in Vietnam currently.
The project shall give added value for Tourism Industry of Cat Ba Islands, one among three main tourism centers of the North of Vietnam besides Ha Long Bay and Sapa.
It is estimated that 30% of total investment capital for the project shall be from Vinaconex-ITC and the rest is from bank loan and investment partners. The Government highly appreciated Cai Gia-Cat Ba Resort Community Project and gave project many advantages such as; exempting land rent for 15 years, exempting land use tax for 15 years and other advantages on enterprise income tax. The project was also given favorable conditions by local government.
Cat Ba is one among most famous tourism area of Vietnam and attracting more than 500,000 domestic and foreign visitors last year in which approximately 20% is foreign visitors. Cat Ba Island under Cat Ba District, Hai Phong City, 150 km away Hanoi, is the biggest island among 366 limestone islands of Cat Ba Archipelagos. Cat Ba Archipelagos, with an area of approximately 200km2, is the world well known for wonderful limestone mountains, tropical forest, euphorbia, sea grass, beaches and mysterious caves and diversified ecosystem. From Hai Phong City, tourists can go to Cat Ba Island by land, by waterway or by air. It takes visitors 45 minutes by waterway and the visitors can enjoy a wonderful and gigantic national landscape that the God gave this City.
In recent years, the State invested approximately VND 100 billion to expand the electricity supply system for all communes of Island District and construct the infrastructure, roads, bridges and ferries. There is 90 hotels and guesthouses in which includes 1 three-star hotel, 8 two-star hotels and 8 one-star hotel in Cat Ba District. Some tourism projects are being implemented in Cat Ba District with small scale and by domestic investors. In other hand, many foreigners are now easy to own houses in Vietnam thanks to a law recently passed by the National Assembly allows them to do so.
Besides, Viet Nam’s tourism industry is expected to receive 6-6.5 million foreign tourists per annum by 2010, and the number of locals with an annual income reaching $3,000-5,000 is anticipated to increase remarkably in the next five years. These should be considered very favorable conditions for the initial development of the local tourism-property market. That’s the big gold chance for foreign-invested projects.
However, according to Tran Ngoc Quang – General Director of Vinaconex – ITC, while foreign investors were eager to establish strategic project developers last year, they have been more careful in their assessment of realty project this year. They often focus on whether the projects are large- scale and developed on legally acquired land with proper site clearance, offer high-end products, and have great potential and added value, or whether the project developer are renowned.
Cai Gia-Cat Ba project has attracted a lot of investors’ interest due to its economy of scale, feasibility, strategic location and the island’s clear-cut advantages in sea tourism. In April, 2008, after surveying Cat Ba Resort Community Project several times, the State General Reserve Fund of OMAN (SGRF) decided to sign the MOU with Vinaconex-ITC, witnessed by both Viet Nam’s Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Sinh Hung and Oman’s Economic Minister Ahmed Macki. Under the MOU, SGRF will invest about USD 20m into Vinaconex – ITC and become a strategic shareholder of Vinaconex – ITC.
Mr. Tran Ngoc Quang said: “With our ability and ambition, we will make great effort to implement project. We tried our best to bring investors fully completed project infrastructure system, especially the services and entertainment area. It will make Vietnam tourism develop.”
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