The brothers who propose multi-billion dollar projects The names ‘Nguyen Duc Thuy’ and “Nguyen Van Thien’ have become well known these days as they are businessmen who have great ambitions and mammoth projects.   The Xuan Thanh Cement Plant Their proposal to develop a trans-Asia waterway route on the Red River at $1 billion by Xuan Thien Company Ltd has stirred up the public. The audacious idea has sparked curiosity among the public. Who is Nguyen Van Thien, the owner of Xuan Thien? Xuan Thien has been well known in Vietnam since 2014 when it became the first Vietnamese company which invested in a hydropower development project in Cameroon. Xuan Thien is one of 12 subsidiaries of Xuan Thanh Group which has been renamed ThaiGroup, one of the leading privately run conglomerates. Xuan Thien has been considered the key business of ThaiGroup, specializing in developing hydropower and cement projects. In the field of hydropower alone, Xuan Thien implements 20 projects, both in Vietnam and overseas. In Vietnam, Xuan Thien is the developer of hydropower plants with capacity of 20-100 MW in the northern provinces of Son La, Yen Bai and Ha Giang. In Cameroon, it is the developer of Yabassi and Toumbassala hydropower plants on Wouri and Nkam rivers which have total capacity of 600 MW. The company is still looking for new opportunities to develop more power projects in Africa and Latin America. Xuan Thien also has injected money into cement plants. Together with ThaiGroup’s subsidiaries, it has been running cement plants which churn out 10 million tons of products every year.   The names ‘Nguyen Duc Thuy’ and “Nguyen Van Thien’ have become well known these days as they are businessmen who have great ambitions and mammoth projects. These include the production line No 2 of Xuan Thanh Ha Nam Plant, the most modern in the world, utilizing Danish FLSmidth’s technology with the capacity of 12,500 tons of clinker a day. The company has recently poured money into mechanical engineering and the real estate market. In Vietnam, it invests in two 5-star hotels with 1,000 rooms, while it is considering developing hotels in Africa and Latin America as well. Meanwhile, Nguyen Duc Thuy is even more famous than his elder brother Nguyen Van Thien, especially after Thuy, in January 2016, became the new chair of Kim Lien Tourism JSC in Hanoi which runs Kim Lien Hotel. Thuy had to spend VND1 trillion, or $44.8 million to acquire 3.65 million shares of the company, which now owns 3.5 hectares of ‘golden land’ as it is located in the central business district of Hanoi, near the legendary Hoan Kiem Lake. Most recently, local newspapers have found that Thuy is quietly building a 350 hectare resort on Phu Quoc Island, called the new resort paradise. If implemented, the project will be even bigger than Vinpearl Phu Quoc. Tri Thuc Tre