This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly on September 11, 2017 - September 17, 2017

JOEY Lim Keong Yew was still a student in 2001 when his late father, Datuk Lim Tee Keong, and late grandfather, casino mogul Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong, travelled to Lao Cai in Vietnam’s mountainous northwest region, bordering China’s Yunnan province.

Goh Tong, who founded the Genting Group, was invited by the Vietnamese government to look for investors to help build a casino there.

“He insisted we go through China. It was a 14-hour drive. Lao Cai was much, much, much smaller then. At the time, there was no big bridge linking Yunnan and Lao Cai,” recalls 37-year-old Joey.

“They (Vietnamese government) offered him two locations — the first was Ha Long Bay and the second, Lao Cai.

“I love Ha Long Bay. It’s one of the wonders of Asia, a Unesco heritage site. The stone formations are beautiful ... I said open (a casino) here, but my grandfather thought otherwise and said Lao Cai, Lao Cai, Lao Cai. It was a horrible place back then; I didn’t see it growing so much,” Joey says.

“But he had the foresight, he didn’t miss a thing. Every trip, he insisted on going through China. At every town, we had to stop ... he wanted to see the price of rice, how much a meal cost. And in Kunming, we took public transport. He didn’t want to be driven around, he wanted to see for himself what the local economy was like,” Joey reminisces.

Goh Tong even provided funding of US$10 million to help start the business, and parachuted some of his close aides — the top brass from Genting Group — into the Lao Cai development. They oversaw the construction and development and handled the operations initially.

“I only got very involved in 2006, 2007,” Joey says.

Pictures of the three generations of the Lim family line the offices of the casino today.

Joey, who is managing director of Australia-listed Donaco International Ltd, which owns 95% of Aristo International Hotel in Lao Cai and wholly owns Star Vegas in Poipet, Cambodia, recalls his grandfather’s words of wisdom to be patient when business was not up to expectations in the early days.

“Be patient. It will come, he used to tell me,” says Joey.

As the Vietnamese are not allowed into casinos in the country, Aristo International is positioned for the Chinese market, which explains why Goh Tong was so focused on the Chinese side of the border.

Back in 2001, Lao Cai was a small trading town, mainly selling banana and rice, but thanks to the boom in China, it is today a Tier 2 city. The town’s population has increased 10 times since then.

Donaco now has more than 3,000 employees and has been the official casino resort partner of one of football’s most valuable brands, Manchester United, since 2015.

With a lot more development by Donaco in the works in Lao Cai, the small border town could mirror the Genting Group’s Genting Highlands resort — albeit on a smaller scale — in years to come.

Save by subscribing to us for your print and/or digital copy.

P/S: The Edge is also available on Apple's App Store and Android's Google Play.