The Lang Son International Joint stock Company Wednesday announced plans to build a 186-hectare casino “city” in Lang Son City in the northern mountains.

The complex will have a 50,000 sq.m. international shopping center, three hotel blocks, 10 apartment and office blocks, 300 villas, an 18-hole golf course, and a casino, all built to five-star standards.

The investor will first sell 240 semi-detached villas designed in European style. Already, 20 have been sold at VND4 billion-6 billion (US$204,000-306,000) each, according to Netreal Vietnam Real Estate Brokerage Joint Stock Co., the sole sales agent for the project.

“The project will be an important landmark in the Dong Dang-Lang Son Border Gate Economic Zone when it is completed after 2015,” Dau Tu (Vietnam Investment Review) newspaper quoted Lam Bao Ky, general director of the Lang Son International Joint Stock Company, as saying.

“It will expand the province’s urban area and create a breakthrough for trading, service, tourism.”

The law prohibits Vietnamese from even entering casinos, which therefore depend on foreign passport holders for business.