Vietnam to have 115 golf courses by 2020 

Vietnam will have a total 115 golf courses by 2020, according to a plan that the Ministry of Planning and Investment recently submitted to the Prime Minister, Tien Phong reported Wednesday.

 

The ministry was quoted as saying that compared to a decision approved by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung in 2009, the new plan proposed cancelling three courses because its inspections showed that they failed to meet investment conditions and regulations.

 

Meanwhile, an additional 28 new golf courses that will cover 3,812 hectares of land in total were proposed in provinces like Phu Tho, Khanh Hoa, and Kien Giang, according to the ministry.

 

All the newly-proposed projects will be purely golf courses, while some of the previously approved golf complexes also include tourism resorts, Minister Vo Hong Phuc told the newspaper.

 

All of the old and new projects on the list meet all regulations that require them to be located in areas with high potential for tourism, and not on land used for rice cultivation, he added.

 

Currently in Vietnam 29 golf courses are operating, 22 are being constructed, 13 have received investment certificates, while 23 others have been approved in principle, the ministry said.

 

Incomplete statistics showed that last year golf courses provided a total of VND505 billion (US$24.56 million) to the state budget, Tien Phong reported.