Genting's Vietnam bet sours
Malaysia's sole casino operator, Genting, may have
made a lousy bet on Vietnam. In mid-December
Genting announced that its Luxembourg-listed
subsidiary, Genting International, had invested almost
$3 million in a Canadian gaming firm that has trumpeted
plans to set up the first on-line lottery in southern
Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City. But the Vietnamese
government has no intention of granting a licence for the
venture pitched by the publicly-listed Canadian firm,
Pacific Lottery Corp. Officials say they don't want to
siphon funds away from the popular state-run lotteries,
which raked in 9 trillion dong ($584 million) last year.
These funds are disbursed at the discretion of provincial
leaders of the Vietnamese Communist Party.
"We don't
want to share with foreigners," says Nguyen Tien
Cuong, deputy manager of the lottery management
division at the Ministry of Finance. "This is revenue for
social welfare." Although the Canadian company was
counting on a state-owned firm, Newtatco, to obtain a
licence, a spokesman from the Vietnamese firm told the
REVIEW that the project had been dropped. Genting
officials would not comment, but a spokesman for
Pacific Lottery maintains the firm was only planning to
provide equipment and services to an on-line lottery
controlled by the state.
The Far Eastern Economic Review - January 16, 2003.
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