As many as 166 golf courses covering 52,000 hectares of land serve around 5000 golfers in Vietnam. Each golfer has over 10 hectares of land for entertainment. Meanwhile, each person in the northern delta has only 360 sq.m of land for planting rice on average.

The National Assembly’s Committee for Science, Technology and Environment vice chairman Nguyen Dang Vang has suggested various solutions, including collecting tax arrears.

Under the rules of market, supply and demand of a product or a service must be in balance, otherwise that market will become distorted. The market of golf in our country is very absurd, the chairman says. There are around 5000 players but there are 166 golf courses. The average number of golf courses of 192 countries and territories, including developed countries, is 14.

Most golf course projects are real estate ones. How can we deal with this problem?

Most golf courses incur losses, even the senior Da Lat golf course (in Da Lat city, Lam Dong province). This golf course is located in a very nice area, which has many tourists, but last year it still lost money. However, people flock to invest in golf courses. Minister (of Planning and Investment) Vo Hong Phuc said that this is a masquerade. We can see it if we look at the area of golf courses. It is estimated that a golf course needs around 100 hectares of land but golf courses in Vietnam have an average area of over 300 hectares.

Therefore, golf developers use two-thirds of the land for real estate business. In my opinion, golf courses must be considered real estate projects. It is very regrettable that a golf course which asks for 300 hectares of agricultural land is licenced.

Plains are favourable for transport and agriculture so they must be used for production. Golf courses can create a small number of jobs on a hectare of land so I think some golf courses in the Red River Delta should not be licenced.

You mean that golf course projects on plains should be revoked?

It depends on local governments. Investors were licenced and they invested their money in these projects. If local governments revoke golf projects, they have to compensate them.

But I think that if there are more effective projects than golf courses, local government should compensate golf developers and revoke land to implement the other projects.

How should we solve the “inflation” of golf courses? Should we ban the construction of real estate works on golf courses for sale?

That’s right! I think the Ministry of Planning and Investment considered this. When the ministry stipulates that a golf course must be less than 110 hectares, investors cannot build villas for sale. We can also ban golf developers from selling real estate projects on golf courses.

In my opinion, we should reconsider taxation methods. Land for building golf courses is sold at 90,000 dong per square metre because it is agricultural land. If houses are built on that land, the price will be millions of dong per square metre. The government should collect arrears of taxes and land fees from golf courses that have houses for sale.

The Ministry of Planning and Investment plans to revoke 50 golf course projects. Is that number small?

It is small but it shows the ministry’s intentions concerning golf courses. However, it would be very difficult to withdraw licences of projects that have completed formalities. But I emphasise that we can use taxes as an effective method. Golf courses are for rich people, account for vast areas of land, cause pollution and affect cooking security, so taxes should be very high.

If taxes are suitable to the fact, these disguised golf courses will disappear.

VietNamNet/TT