Hanoi's horse racing complex to go into operation in 2020

The 100-hectare multi-purpose entertainment complex and horse racing project, 40 kilometers north of Hanoi in Soc Son District, will offer horse betting.

City authorities urged Soc Son District to push up ground clearance and hand over land to investors so that the project could be implemented soon, with the expectation that the first race will start in October 2020.

Lee Daa Bong, chairman of the South Korean Charmvit Group, which is the project's investor, pledged to make every effort to put the project into operation on schedule.

Charmvit is currently investing in several real estate projects in Vietnam, including a hotel in Hanoi and a golf course in the nearby Hoa Binh Province.

Last December, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc approved the $420-million racetrack complex in Hanoi after agreeing to include the project into the capital city’s 2020 socio-economic development master plan.

Hanoi is expected to collect a corporate tax amount of $40-$50 million and a special consumption tax of $100-200 million per year once the racetrack complex becomes operational.

Once put into operation, the project will employ an estimated 5,000 direct laborers and 20,000-25,000 indirect laborers.

The horse racecourse project in Hanoi was first researched in 1999, with the proposed location to be in the southern districts of Hoang Mai and Thanh Tri.

However, as Vietnam's legal framework for sports betting and horse racing was incomplete at the time, it was put on hold.

Vietnam approved a bill legalizing sports betting last year and the government promulgated a decree regulating the sports-betting business earlier this year, throwing open opportunities for foreign investors to build racecourses in the country.

In addition to the horse racecourse in Hanoi, foreign firms are also said to be pursuing plans to build horse racecourses in the northern provinces of Bac Ninh and Vinh Phuc, as well as the southern metropolis of Ho Chi Minh City.

A horse racecourse complex in the Dai Nam Tourism Park in the southern province of Binh Duong, the first in Vietnam, opened in 2017.