Nepal Tiger Palace gets pre-approval for casino ops: firm

Dec 22, 2017 Newsdesk Latest News, Rest of Asia, Top of the deck  

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Boutique Asian casino operator and developer Silver Heritage Group Ltd says it has received a pre-approval letter from the Nepalese government granting it a licence to operate a casino at Tiger Palace Resort Bhairahawa, a new property near the country’s border with the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

The announcement was made in a Friday filing to the Australian Securities Exchange. No tentative schedule for the casino opening was mentioned in the document.

Silver Heritage had stated late last month that it was waiting for regulatory approval in order to open the casino at Tiger Palace.

In the latest filing, the firm said that, in accordance with the Nepal casino regulations, “payment is now due to the Ministry of Culture, Tourism, and Civil Aviation for the initial casino licence fee of NPR20 million (approximately US$194,000), and the casino royalty fee of NPR30 million (approximately US$291,000) for the Nepal fiscal year, which runs from mid-July to mid-July the following year.”

Silver Heritage stated it would now make the necessary payments; “upon receipt of the payment, it is expected that the Ministry of Culture, Tourism, and Civil Aviation will issue the formal casino licence, allowing casino gaming to take place at Tiger Palace immediately.”

The firm added that a new announcement would be made upon the issuance of the formal casino licence by the Nepalese authorities.

Silver Heritage had stated last month that Tiger Palace remained “on budget [for completion] at less than the revised budget amount of US$51.8 million, and for the casino to open by November 30”.

A soft opening of the property’s hotel facilities, offering 100 rooms, was held on September 20.

Silver Heritage runs the Millionaire’s Club and Casino in Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital, and the Phoenix International Club, near Hanoi, in Vietnam.

The firm hinted in a September business update that it had identified another site in Nepal for a potential second new resort following the opening of Tiger Palace. According to that company update, the second site would be further east, near Nepal’s border with the Indian states of Bihar and Sikkim, and a relatively short distance from India’s contiguous border with Bangladesh.

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