One of coffee giant Trung Nguyen’s five sluggish projects in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak was licensed more than a decade ago but the country’s top coffee processor has yet to begin construction work on it.

The provincial administration issued an ultimatum to Trung Nguyen on Wednesday and Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper visited the project sites to witness first-hand any action taken by the developer one day later.

As part of the ultimatum, Trung Nguyen was given new deadlines to finish the projects; otherwise it would lose its licenses for all of them, according to the document.

The largest of the tardy projects is the VND2.12 trillion (US$94.64 million) Suoi Xanh ecotourism and coffee culture-themed area.

The project, spanning 45.45 hectares in the provincial capital of Buon Ma Thuot, received in-principle approval from the provincial administration in September 2009, and was officially licensed in December 2014.

The tourism area is to feature a hotel-restaurant complex, a coffee museum, an elephant conservation area, and a dozen other components, but the land plot zoned for the project is now abandoned and divided into three parts, one of which is leased to a nearby restaurant to use as a parking lot. 

The second part of the zoned area has been turned into a cassava field, and the remaining is full of garbage, despite the ‘no littering’ signage at the site.

Le Thi Kim Anh, a local trash collector, said she has heard of the Suoi Xanh project for years but has never seen any construction work underway there.

“The other day they sent some bulldozers to the land, but left a few days thereafter, so this area remains jammed with garbage,” Anh said.

Other residents said Trung Nguyen Group had promised to clear the site and compensate locals who would have to relocate, but no site clearance has been carried out.

In January 2004, the group also won the in-principle approval for a cattle farm doubling as an ecotourism project in M’Drak District.

The 595-hectare project has a registered capital of VND68 billion ($3.04 million), and Trung Nguyen Group has already been granted a plot of agricultural land to build construction units for it, according to the province’s Department of Planning and Investment.

“It has been 11 years since Trung Nguyen received the in-principle nod, but they have only upgraded some dirt roads, built several stilt houses and raised some horses and boars native to M’Drak there,” the department said.

“As of August 2015, Trung Nguyen had yet to complete the investment preparation procedures.”

In the meantime, the Trung Nguyen guesthouse project was approved in principle by the Dak Lak administration in June 2014. The VND139 billion ($6.21 million) project, covering six hectares in Buon Ma Thuot, consists of such components as a guesthouse, a meeting hall and villas.

However in August 2015, the developer was still completing such investment preparation procedures as “mapping and hiring consultancies to prepare the 1:500 planning” for the project, according to the investment department.

The land plot zoned for the guesthouse is now surrounded by fences and barbed wire, with thousands of big slabs of stone, meant to create ornamental constructions, scattered inside. There is also a block of houses for construction workers, but all doors are shut.

The developer has yet to complete necessary legal paperwork to start implementing its VND50 billion ($2.23 million) Dray Sap Thuong and Dray Nur waterfalls ecotourism project in Krong Na, more than five years after it was given the go-ahead.

An official from the Department of Planning and Investment told Tuoi Tre on Thursday that Trung Nguyen should be more serious and determined in executing its projects.

“Authorities and relevant agencies are willing to instruct and help Trung Nguyen to complete any investment procedures,” he said.

“But if the deadlines are missed, we’ll have to pull the plug on the projects to find more capable developers.”

Founded in 1996, Trung Nguyen, which runs Vietnam's biggest chain of coffee houses, distributes coffee to the UK, the U.S., Russia, Japan, South Korea, and other Southeast Asian countries, it said on its website.

The company said it had exported to 60 countries and boasted more than 13.2 billion cups of Trung Nguyen consumed across the globe as of 2013.

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