Ministry of Planning and Investment will impose tighter regulation on golf course projects, said Minister Vo Hong Phuc at the National Assembly session on June 12.

Ministers of Planning and Investment and natural Resources and Environment were grilled by National Assembly members on Friday over golf courses.

For a poor country like our country, is the number of golf courses too high? members asked Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Pham Khoi Nguyen.

In reality, only 30% of square of planned golf courses have used in building golf courses, the remaining have been used in developing villas, hotels, orchards…, they added.

Explaining why the number of golf courses has rocketed up, Minister Pham Khoi Nguyen said , “since local authorities have received the green signal for expanding power, they have approved land fund for developing tourism, sport, forest to be used for building golf courses”.

He promised to inspect golf projects deployed to impose appropriate tax on the projects.

“Businesses using land in golf projects to build up villas, hotels… must pay tax on immovable”, he added.

At the session, Minister of Planning and Investment Vo Hong Phuc said that Vietnam is threatening its agricultural land and almost one third of the projects should be stopped.

Fifty of the 166 golf courses under development or approved should be cancelled, he added.

He asked the assembly to tell provincial authorities to abort the projects.

“There is no reason to use rice-growing land to build golf courses,” the Minister of Planning and Investment affirmed.

“Under the proposals, an 18-hole course would be licensed in most cases if it covered less than 100 hectares (247 acres) of land, and each course could use a maximum of only 10 hectares of infertile rice fields”.

“Rice fields must be retained to ensure the nation’s cooking security,” the Minister of Natural Resources and Environment, Pham Khoi Nguyen called.

Vietnam is the second largest rice exporter in the world.

VietNamNet/SGGP