Good Choice’s $1.3 bln project is a mystery

Good Choice’s $1.3 bln project is a mystery

A $1.3 billion tourism project in southern Ba Ria-Vung Tau province is still in the dark.

It is nearly a year since Ba Ria-Vung Tau authorities decided to grab the licence off American developer Good Choice to build the Wonderful Theme Park. However, the project is still up in the air.
Dang Minh Thong, deputy director of the province’s Department of Planning and Investment (DIP), said: “After receiving the licence [for the project], Good Choice seemed to vanish without a trace.

The developer did nothing to push this project ahead and not reply to documents sent by local authorities.”

“Even when we announced that we would revoke its licence for the tourism project, no representative of the developer was appointed to solve the problem,” said Thong.

Beside that, the developer still owed the Ba Ria-Vung Tau Provincial Department of Natural Resources and Environment VND400 million ($20,000) for a site surveying contract.

As a result, it is difficult for Ba Ria-Vung Tau authorities to put the project into liquidation, leading it to find the developer via the American consulate general.

Licenced in 2008, Wonder Theme Park was the biggest foreign-invested project in Ba Ria-Vung Tau province at that time, with a five-star hotel with 2,500 rooms, four 4-star hotels with 1,000 rooms each and an entertainment complex in Nguyen An Ninh ward.

“If the project was completed, it would change the face of our province. So we do not want to reject the project. We plan to find another developer with strong financial capacity, prestige and of course a long-term commitment to make the project to become true,” said Thong.

After the wave of foreign developers into Ba Ria-Vung Tau during 2007-2008, the province is home of a series of long-delayed multi-million dollar property projects such as the $4.1 billion Saigon Atlantis Hotel and the $900 million Skybridge Dragon Sea.

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