At Da Nang Investment Forum 2017, Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao of Sovico Holdings talked about the fate of Sovico and Da Nang. The following is her speech.

"The land of Quang Nam – Da Nang plays an important role in the development of Sovico Holdings. Recalling in 2003 when my family spent our holiday at Furama, we all soon fell in love with the city’s beauty and the people’s hospitality. The experiences motivated us to jump to the wonderful conclusion to buy Furama in 2005. Then, we tried best to prepare for soon coming APEC 2006 by constructing Furama Convention within 04 months to serve APEC – SOM3 Da Nang 2006. Seated 1,000 delegates, the convention was designed with a special architecture under international norms.

 

Then, we initiated “The Heritage Road in Central Vietnam” program to connect Hue – My Son – Da Nang – Hoi An with an aim at marketing for central tourism and our investments. Last 10 years witnessed a great transformation of Da Nang to be a dynamic and fully integrated city.

Since APEC 2006, we are now chosen to be the investor of Ariyana International Convention Center to serve APEC Senior Week 2017. We are proud of that the convention was the first finished constructions for the APEC 2017. Located at one of the most beautiful beaches in the world, Ariyana, the biggest convention complex is ready for international level events.

 

The fateful connection with Furama, with Da Nang and with the whole central Vietnam, we went home to do business in tourism, hotels, finance and banking, aviation, etc. to contribute to Vietnam’s economic development.

 

Vietjet was born. The melody of Hello Vietnam flies high and far in the sky. Vietjet’s aircraft featuring Vietnamese national flag fly on around 70 international routes connecting Vietnam with Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Bangkok, Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Malaysia, etc. Naturally, we do market for Vietnam tourism and investment as it has to offer.

 

From Da Nang since early 2017, Vietjet has carried 2.7 million passengers with an average of 90 flights per day. There are four international routes from Da Nang now and the fifth connecting Da Nang with Pusan (Korea) will be soon put in operation to welcome APEC week. In 2018, we plan to open 6 to 8 more routes from Da Nang to Japan, Korea and Thailand. 

 

This is also important to mention our HDBank. Since its first appearance here in 2008, HDBank now has five branches in Da Nang city, making up for the bank’s 240 branches and offices, 9,000 lending agents nationwide which liquidize near VND 10 trillion. The bank’s total asset is around VND 160 trillion.

 

Our HDSaigon Finance Company is serving 558,000 clients in the region. We are ready to participate in investment projects by the local governments, and provide favorable lending for local entrepreneurs, investors and populace.

 

At our first trip here, Furama was the only five - star resort on Da Nang beach. Now, we have a miracle named “The five - star road” stretching from Da Nang to Hoi An which consists of premier resorts.

 

Da Nang today is beautiful, modern and very promising. Its investment for 9M of 2017 stands at round $1.00 billion. I am strongly convinced that after this forum, the number will soon soar. I believe that Da Nang will fulfill its role as the host city of APEC Senior Week 2017.

 

Sovico Holdings, Vietjet, HDBank are ready to be with Da Nang on its way ahead to call for investments. We are dedicated to mobilizing our resources for the success of projects, for the city’s budget, for the city’s developments, for a better business environment, for an advanced and civilized society."