A super luxurious casino resort in Cairns is supposed to be built by Tony Fung in the foreseeable future but for the time being, the start of the building procedure is brought to a standstill.
The reason why the $8-million mega project was halted was the fact that the casino developers could not manage to acquire the Reef Casino a few weeks ago.
Tony Fung and his son – Justin, were hopeful that they would be able to raise the sum necessary for the project by becoming owners of Reef and listing part of the development company they manage on the Hong Kong stock exchange.
Unfortunately, things went in the wrong direction when Queensland authorities created a lot of hassle, concerning the gaming probity approvals and Aquis was one of the affected companies.
Now, Aquis is going to opt for the other option available and acquire Casino Canberra.
Tony Fung has recently announced that he would do his best to start the building procedures as soon as possible and establish the biggest and the most attractive casino in Cairns by 2016.
However, Justin Fung was willing neither to confirm nor to deny the actuality of his father’s statement.
What he revealed in an interview for a local media was that things have been changing too fast in the recent months and the only thing he could confirm was that they were impatient to start the building procedure at their earliest convenience.
In conclusion, he reassured the communities that despite the setbacks related to the acquisition of Reef they have already started the talks, concerning the acquisition of Canberra Casino and the expectations are the deal to be closed in two weeks.
Journalists tried to get an answer to the question what was the main reason for the Reef deal to be suspended but Mr. Fung was reluctant to reveal much information and said that they did not expect such a precedent to happen. Nevertheless, they remain devoted to completing the Aquis project.
Tony and Justing Fung will not acquire a license for building a casino unless they go through the probity procedure once again.
The design of the Aquis casino was announced. The resort will consist of 7500 hotel rooms, a golf course, an aquarium, theaters, conference halls, etc.
However, in order to get the approval, casino executives had to give their consent to hire predominantly local people, keep the noise to the minimum while the building procedure is in progress and last but not least to develop environmental-friendly management plans.
Plus, local authorities concluded that the risk the new casino will put the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area at, is kept in the reasonable range.
Aquis has not bought the 320 hectare area for the resort to be built but they are expected to do that soon. According to people familiar with the matter, the sum of $30 million has already been spent on design planning and the amount of money spent on buying the land will most probably amount to $40 million.
