The casino is proposed to be built on Hon Tre Island near famous beach town Nha Trang along with tourism and amusement components.

It requires approval from the Politburo, which is at the apex of the Communist Party, and government. If approved it will be the second in the province after an earlier, $2.02-billion casino received the green light in 2019.

The Ministry of Finance said an assessment needs to be done on the impacts of the proposed casino on local tourism and socio-economic growth.

The government has for long treated gambling as a social evil and prohibited Vietnamese from entering casinos.

But in January 2019 it opened certain casinos to Vietnamese as part of a three-year trial and will continue to do so on a case-by-case basis.

Vietnamese who want to gamble in a casino must be over 21, earn a minimum of VND10 million ($430) a month and have no criminal record or objections from their family.

A group of casino owners recently sought the government’s permission to let Vietnamese in to make up for foreigners’ absence due to the Covid-19 international travel restrictions.

Vietnam has eight casinos which earned revenues of VND2.5 trillion in 2019, according to Ministry of Finance data.