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SRI LANKA – PLANNING ITS OWN MINI LAS VEGAS John Keells Holdings, Sri Lanka’s largest listed conglomerate, is presently at work in Colombo preparing the foundations for its new $650m resort, the largest investment by a domestic company in Sri Lanka. The resort, which is due to open in 2018, will include an 900-room luxury hotel, conference venues, a shopping mall, residential apartments, an office complex and, potentially, a casino. It will be built in the land owned and occupied by the JKH subsidiaries, Ceylon Cold Stores (CCS), John Keells PLC, John Keells Properties and Waterfront Properties in Slave Island in Colombo.
To attract development, Sri Lanka is offering 10-year tax breaks on income generated from visitors. The casino section of any integrated projects will be taxed, but the project will still benefit from massive tax exemptions from Customs Duty, Construction Industry Guarantee Fund Levy, Port and Airport Development Levy, V.A.T, PAYE tax for foreign employees (five years), Withholding Tax on foreign loan interest and Tax on Dividends for 11 years. Operators will also only pay six per cent tax for 12 years after the 10 year income tax holiday has ended. To further attract investment the government has also designated a street along Lake Beira for new casinos, creating Sri Lanka’s own Vegas Strip.
Since the end of the civil war in 2009, tourist figures have been on the rise in Sri Lanka. Arrivals grew more than 20 per cent a year from 2009 to 2012, versus five per cent from 2004 to 2008. Last year arrivals hit 1.3 million in the year ending in March, with Chinese visitors rising rapidly, though India remains the largest source of visitation. John Keells is targeting the newly affluent rich in both of these countries and a casino is crucial to its plans.
Investment promotions minister Lakshaman Yapa Abeywardene said the Keells resort will be allowed to operate a casino if the government issues them with a license, adding that said the project hopes to raise $300m from overseas investors. However, Sri Lankan President Rajapaksa, when questioned in June, stated that no new casino licenses would be issued, but that he, “didn’t rule out the possibility of operators securing a previously issued licence. As a result, John Keells is in talks to attract in an international gambling operator to work with the company to secure a licence from the holders of the existing five Sri Lankan gaming licences.
Ravi Wijeratne is chairman-owner of conglomerate Rank Holdings, whose interests include a port, real estate, waste- reclamation and hydro and wind energy plants. He also holds two of the five casino licenses in Sri Lanka. The other three are held by domestic counterpart, Dhammika Perera, whose personal fortune is estimated at $550m.
At present, Dhammika Perera, one of the richest men in the country has his own gambling resort in the works in the gov- ernment-designated strip. (The Keells layout, which sits on land it has owned for several years, is nearly a mile away but received special permission). Perera’s project, Queensbury Integrated Resort & Casino, includes a 500-room hotel, a mini convention centre and its own shopping mall.
James Packer’s Crown Colombo, in partnership with Mr. Wijeratne, is priced at $400m and is said to be targeting hi- rollers and will include a casino, a 400 room hotel, restau- rants and convention facilities. Crown Colombo is set to open in 2016.
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RESORTS GAMBLE ON CASINO SURGE
More operators are interested in investing in the Vietnam despite a marked slowdown of visitors from China Vietnam - Operations
Vietnam’s still youthful gaming market is showing signs of maturity with a number of hospitality developers asking for licences to build casinos as upcoming wide-ranging measures would help legitimise the industry and streamline investment.
The latest proposal came from Singapore’s resort developer and operator Banyan Tree Holdings, which wants to build a casino at its existing $800m Laguna Lang Co integrated resort in the central province of Thua Thien-Hue.
According to Laguna Lang Co, a subsidiary of Banyan Tree Holdings and also the operator of the integrated resort, a casino will ‘further enhance’ its guests’ experience and position the resort as ‘a strong competitor’ in the region.
Although Banyan Tree Holdings has to wait for the Vietnamese government’s permission, local authorities have already given a thumbs-up to the project. In the coming years the number of casinos in Vietnam is expected to double because devel- opers like Banyan Tree Holdings are keen to gain access to the market.
Not far from the Laguna Lang Co resort, another Vietnamese private developer, Sun Group, has asked government permission to open casinos at its two existing resorts in Danang - Ba Na Hills and Son Tra Intercontinental Resort.
The Vietnamese government is also calling on pri-
vate investment for developing two integrated casino-resorts in the Phu Quoc Island and Van Don Island. Currently Vietnam has seven casinos licensed nationwide that serve only foreigners, as Vietnamese are not allowed to enter gaming establishments. The biggest is the Grand Ho Tram in the southern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau. It has 90 gaming tables and 1,000 slots. When Canada’s Asia Coast Development Limited Company – the owner of the Grand Ho Tram – completes the ongoing second phase of the project, it will be expanded to 180 tables and 2,000 EGMs.
Donaco International, which holds a 95 per cent stake at five-star casino and hotel Lao Cai International Hotel in the northern mountainous province of Lao Cai, last month announced that its brand-new, five-star Aristo International Hotel, had seen strong results since its soft opening on May 19. “The opening of the new property has attracted strong interest from players and junket operators. Total visits to the gaming floor since the soft opening are up 41 per cent against the old property,” according to the casino operator.
Donaco gained approval from the government last year for increasing its total gaming tables to 50, from eight, in order to serve the rising demand of players coming from China. The casino operator said that the current tensions between Vietnam and China over the East Sea had slowed overall Chinese tourism to Vietnam, and deterred some major players from visiting the property.
New law attempts to regulate online gaming in the Philippines
PHILIPPINES Internet-based gambling in the Philippines is lawful, as there is no existing law that declares or pre- scribes punishment for engaging in online gambling or real money online casino betting.
However, House Representative Samuel D Pagdilao Jr. the lone rep- resentative of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers and Anti- Crime and Terrorism Community Involvement and Support (ACT- CIS) Party-List, has introduced House Bill 4540 or The Internet Gambling Regulatory Act of 2014, which aims to regulate online gambling in the country.
Representative Pagdilao has raised concerns that online gambling remains unchecked due to the absence of related laws governing
it. He states that the absence of a safety net preventing minors and those susceptible to the harms posed by gambling, has meant that the Philippine gambling market has attracted unscrupulous online gambling operators and cyber- crime syndicates using the country as haven for illegal operations.
Mr. Pagdilao cites as example the many cases filed by the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) during his tenure as CIDG Director, which were dismissed by the courts, simply because there is no law that penalises online gam- bling operations in the country.
“The popular basis for the court rulings is on the premise that ‘there is no crime when there is no law penalising it,” stated Mr. Pagdilao.
Tahiti The French Polynesian government has approved a proposed hotel and resort complex on Tahiti, which will cost nearly US$3bn to realise. A jury has picked the project by a Hawaiian company, Group 70 International, to develop the Tahiti Mahana Beach Resorts and Spa on 52 hectares on the island's west side. The president, Gaston Flosse, says he will find the investors to finance the development, which is to include five hotels , a casino, a convention centre, cinemas, an aquatic park as well as luxury shops. The resort project is a key plank in the government's plan to create jobs and revive tourism as visitor numbers are well below what they were 15 years ago.
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