I just need the government to follow the law.

Remember when we invited friends and partners to the inauguration of the gold - plated hotel by Ho Chi Minh City ? Giang Vo ( Dolce by Wyndham Hotel - Hanoi Golden Lake), he took guests to visit each room , each faucet , each mirror . Looking at his hands caressing each object , you can see that he loves this project very much . It seems that it is not just a matter of money anymore but like a spiritual child . So when you decided to sell it , how did you feel ? Why did you decide to sell this hotel ?

- Dolce by Wyndham Hotel – HaNoi Golden Lake was built by us within 1 year (from 2019 to 2020). It can be said that this is the fastest hotel construction in the world and right on the occasion of Vietnam aiming to organize the Formula 1 race. The purpose of building this hotel is to introduce to the world friends about a gold-plated hotel in Vietnam. However, this event was postponed due to the impact of Covid-19 and this also caused difficulties and losses for the hotel business.

In 2020 and 2021, the Covid-19 pandemic broke out, causing many countries to close their tourism and quarantine, and it was not until the end of the first quarter of 2022 that Vietnam reopened. This directly affected the tourism and service industry, many businesses were in difficulty, and Hoa Binh Group was no exception.

I have 3 hotels (Dolce by Wyndham Golden Lake Hotel, Somerset Hoa Binh Hanoi Hotel and Danang Golden Bay Hotel), and in 2022 all 3 hotels are operating at a loss due to the lack of foreign tourists. These 3 hotels mainly serve foreign guests and I am forced to sell this gold-plated hotel to cover the losses of the 3 hotels.

In addition, the social housing project of Hoa Binh Group has not yet been granted investment policy, so the workers do not receive salaries. This is also one of the reasons I decided to sell this gold-plated hotel.

Another reason I decided to sell is to save money to build the largest shopping mall in Southeast Asia and offer free rent for domestic and foreign businesses.

Since the time you announced the sale of the gold - plated hotel , have any partners come to inquire ? How did they respond to the price of 250 million USD that you offered ?

- In fact, the price of 250 million USD is the price that 6 months ago there was a partner negotiating to buy. But last year I really did not want to sell because I thought it was a pride of Vietnam and I affirmed that it would be a long time before another hotel like this was built.

So when I decided to sell, I set the starting price for the auction at 250 million USD and a partner from Europe came to me, earnestly asking to buy the gold-plated hotel at this price.

How long did it take you to prepare for building this hotel ?

- When I started my business, I thought about what I would do. Because there are many unique hotels in the world and I thought I needed to make one of those hotels. Thinking is doing. First, I made a building with a gold-plated elevator door. In 2004, when I was building a building in Hoang Quoc Viet, I found a Russian plating worker to ask him to make a gold-plated elevator door. After that, many other projects built by Hoa Binh Group had gold-plated elevator doors. But my wish is to have more gold-plated products.

In 2017, I researched and experimented to have gold-plated bricks. In fact, if it were just bricks, the gold plating would fade, so I did experiments with experts in many fields around the world. After 3 years of experimenting, I had gold-plated bricks that could withstand the sun and rain like the ones outside this hotel. At this time, I decided to gold-plat the entire building.

You mentioned the social housing project in Linh Nam of Hoa Binh Group which has not yet been granted a policy . Can you tell us more about this project and why Hanoi has not yet granted a policy ?​​​​​​​​​​​​

- Hoa Binh Group currently has 2 prime lands applying for social housing, which are 393 Linh Nam, 3,000m wide, and 468 Vinh Hung, 9,000m wide.

I think that at this time the real estate market is difficult, businesses building commercial housing need to calculate to reduce selling prices, so as to stimulate the market. Because with the current price, I think not many people can buy a house. For example, a 70m2 house costs 40 million VND/m2, the salary of a Minister is not enough to buy a house. Therefore, there will be a situation of excess houses and unsold inventory.

Furthermore, the Government is currently promoting the policy of building social housing to create jobs for construction workers and more than 40 real estate-related industries. In the current context, only by building social housing will people have enough money to buy and line up to buy.

Hoa Binh Group is famous for building gold - plated buildings , but why did it choose to develop social housing projects ? What is your goal when choosing to build social housing projects ?​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

- We decided to build social housing because of the housing difficulties of workers. Our social housing is also built with modern technology and furniture, we even give workers gold-plated water taps to bring luck, not waiting for the God of Wealth day.

Previously, Hoa Binh Group also built commercial housing, but from 2012 until now, it has not done so anymore because the real demand for commercial housing is not as high as social housing. One day, if the project cannot be sold, the enterprise will have difficulty paying the bank interest, and may go bankrupt.

But many real estate businesses say that the profits from building social housing are not enough to cover the costs . What do you think ?​​​​​

- The issue of social housing can be seen like this: Real estate tycoons who only do business with land often do not want to do social housing projects, because if they do, they have to hire a construction company. And the cost to pay the construction company must be 20% of the profit to be able to build, while the profit of a social housing project is regulated at 10%. That is the reason why many real estate businesses with land cannot do social housing, or do social housing but have to compensate for the cost.

As for construction companies like us, we sweat to make money. I have land and can build by myself, so a profit of 10% plus good project liquidity is a success, highly effective.

In addition, I think that developing social housing is very important when commercial housing projects are "frozen", construction companies also have no work so they are forced to change, otherwise workers will have no jobs and become unemployed.

You mentioned that your life 's passion is to build the largest shopping mall in Southeast Asia and will give away free space for rent . Can you tell us more about this project ?​​​​​

- I have been to many countries in the world, almost every country that develops tourism is associated with trade such as: Singapore, Dubai... I think, if Vietnam wants to attract tourists, it must have the cheapest and best goods to attract tourists.

Therefore, I think if Vietnam has a free commercial center for businesses, the price of goods will be cheaper, supporting Vietnamese goods to compete with other countries. In the commercial center, there will be an outlet area to sell out-of-date goods. If Vietnam transports goods from abroad and then sells them, it will be expensive because of the shipping fee, but if it sells Vietnamese goods, it will be very cheap.

Many people ask, if the premises are free, where will the revenue come from? In fact, if the business sells cheap goods, there will be many people coming to buy, then we will serve food, drinks, activities, beer, soft drinks... The revenue from this will be used to pay bank interest. And from the money from selling the gold-plated hotel, I will allocate 1,000 - 2,000 billion to compensate for land clearance for this project.

However, this project is still having problems because it has been 3 years but the Hanoi People's Committee has not yet had an answer. The Government has sent 10 documents reminding Hanoi but so far it has not been resolved.

I think the Government will solve this problem because such a cheap and good quality commercial center project is necessary. Businesses that rent from me will have free space but must buy insurance for the quality of goods and origin. That is why this is my passion project. The world says that if this commercial center project is built, Vietnam will have no poor people.

Before becoming a businessman , he was a soldier . What chance brought him to become a successful businessman like today ?

- During my time in the army, I was in an engineering unit, not in any specific battlefield. I was in Brigade 239 with the mission of building pontoon bridges, so I was everywhere. If you have been in the army, perhaps everyone can understand the hunger, cold on the battlefield and even sacrifice.

In 1979, I returned home and worked as a worker in an export packaging factory. But with a meager salary, I decided to go out and start my own business.

At first I went into business, specifically buying goods to sell and at that time people often called it "smuggling". The first trip was successful, but the second trip lost everything and I asked to go to driving school and that's where the opportunity started. One time by chance I learned that if I pedaled a cyclo to transport beer for hire, I would be paid a case of beer each day, equivalent to about 60 dong, and if I sold it, I would get money equal to a month's salary of an engineer. I worked 26 days a month and earned the same as the monthly salary of 26 engineers.

So I worked as a beer transporter from 1981 to 1987. By 1987, I was known as the "beer king", the richest person in Hanoi because I had a lot of beer to sell. At that time, we decided to establish the Hoa Binh Severely Disabled Veterans Association, to rely on each other and bring joy. Later, we gradually chose profitable production industries such as beer, soft drinks, etc. Then it developed into the Hoa Binh Severely Disabled Veterans Company Limited and had more than 100 severely disabled employees.

Our company produces many types of beer such as: Viet Phap, Nhan Sam, Suc Manh… but until now it is very difficult to compete with big beer companies. Previously, the beer produced by my company accounted for about 40% of the Hanoi market but now it has lost almost all. After the beer production was not successful, the company switched to making beer malt to sell to breweries, this was a product that at that time no one in Southeast Asia made.

How did you switch to construction and real estate ?​​​​

- When the construction of offices and apartments exploded, our company shifted to construction until now. In 2008, I was awarded a certificate of merit by Hanoi City with the title "Leader of a unit with great industrial value and high growth rate contributing to the development of Hanoi City".

Because I was a typical enterprise, Hanoi granted me a plot of land in Hoang Quoc Viet to build a building for a commercial center, offices and apartments for rent as it is today. At that time, building a house was very profitable, the construction cost was only 1 dong but the income was 3 dong.

By 2012, the real estate market froze, I felt it was dangerous because everyone was building houses, I was afraid that the surplus would not be sold so I switched to hotel business.

During your decades in business , what were your most difficult times ? Did you fail a lot ? What lessons did you learn from each failure ?​​​​​​​​​​​​

- All my money-making jobs are unique because I always go first. To avoid failure, you have to look at the lessons of the world, many real estate billionaires also went bankrupt.

For example, when I worked for a beer company, I traveled abroad a lot to learn and see what they did to develop. When I returned to Vietnam, I organized the production of mechanical, industrial and food equipment. For example, in Germany, they make toilet balls and sell them in Vietnam for 105 USD, but I made them with a total cost of only 3 USD and sold them for 80 USD.

As a business in the hospitality sector , how has the Covid - 19 pandemic affected you ?​​​

- If there was no Covid-19 pandemic in the past 3 years, my company would not have lost about 5,000 billion VND in revenue, after deducting expenses, there would be about 3,000 billion VND in profit.

For example, just one of my hotels in Da Nang has a revenue of 100 billion VND/month and in 3 years it is 3,600 billion VND and the profit is about 1,800 billion VND. 2019 is the year of tourism development, the travel companies are all booked.

However, the Covid-19 pandemic has severely affected the global economy, causing many difficulties for hotel and tourism businesses. In 2021, we were still able to maintain, but in the second year, we were only able to maintain 50% of our workforce and the remaining employees also had to cut their salaries. It is forecasted that 2023 will only be less difficult than 2022, so hotel business is not very promising.

Do you want to turn Hoa Binh Group into an " Eagle "? In your opinion , what do Vietnamese enterprises need to do to become " Eagles " ?

- In fact, foreign corporations often come to Vietnam because of cheap labor and the creation of jobs for many workers. For example, a Vietnamese worker at a Samsung factory in Korea has a minimum salary of 500 USD, but in Vietnam he only has to pay 200 USD, a reduction of 300 USD, so they come to Vietnam to invest.

However, the advantage of a young population and low prices is gradually disappearing. Currently, many corporations have begun to gradually move their factories to India because the wages paid to workers are cheaper than in Vietnam and the Indian market is about to become the most populous country in the world, the number of Samsung phone users is increasing.

The same goes for Vietnamese businesses, when investing abroad, they also look for ways to bring money back to their country.

Therefore, I think that in addition to giving incentives to FDI enterprises, we need to pay attention to domestic enterprises. Vietnamese business owners all want to become "Eagles", but it is very difficult.

For example, if the desire to build a shopping mall with free rent becomes a reality, I believe Vietnam will have more than 1 or 2 eagles.

What incentives do you expect the State to have for domestic enterprises to develop strongly , similar to the preferential policies for foreign enterprises to attract FDI ?​​​​​​​​

- The business does not ask for any support from the government, it only asks the government to comply with the provisions of the law. For example, my proposals on building social housing or building a commercial center with free rental space should be responded to within the time limit prescribed by law, so that the business can develop. However, it has been a long time but there is still no answer or feedback to the business on the plan. This makes it very difficult for the business.

Only by following the regulations of the law can enterprises develop to have money to pay taxes, otherwise the economy will be difficult. And having to wait like that is very wasteful for enterprises. For Hoa Binh Group, waiting like that makes us lose 10 billion VND per month, 120 billion VND per year in wasted money, waste of enterprises and tax money.

For example, the Lotte Commercial Center project on Vo Chi Cong Street, according to the Investment Law, was granted investment policy within 35 days, but Hanoi City granted it in just 17 days. Meanwhile, Vietnamese enterprises have waited 900 days and still have not been granted policy.

For example, the government needs to be equal between Vietnamese and foreign enterprises, because if foreign enterprises are given too much priority and domestic enterprises are neglected, it will be very difficult for domestic enterprises to develop. I just need the government to follow the law and be equal.

Besides business, do you have any other hobbies?

- Before, I used to play soccer and we had a soccer club. In 1984, I switched to tennis. I was Vice President of the Tennis Club in Hanoi and played until 2009.

Since then, I have switched to playing golf, 2 sessions/week. I see this as an intellectual sport, maintaining human courage. Playing golf is to overcome yourself because you can always break your limits. In particular, playing golf brings good health to yourself, limiting illness.

It can be said that your startup has been successful so far. How do you plan to "retire"?

- I wanted to quit but I had to fulfill my greatest passion, which is building an outlet mall, before I quit.

Currently, the eldest son is the Deputy General Director of the company after returning from studying abroad in the UK. The other two daughters and son-in-law also studied abroad and returned to the company to take over my career. This is a knowledgeable, well-trained successor team that can continue the company's business.

Thanks for coming​ chat !​​​​​

Source: https://danviet.vn/toi-chi-can-chinh-quyen-lam-dung-quy-dinh-cua-luat-phap-202304030103122.htm