Low-income people are waiting for preferential loans for social housing construction and purchase

Provincial People's Committee has issued a directive "Enhancing the development of lodging houses to implement social housing for rent policy" to help people access to low interest loans to build social housing for rent. At the same time, Vietnam Bank for Social Policies has also implemented incentives for buying social housing to help low-income people settle down. With incentives, low-income people are waiting for the application to get loans for social housing construction and purchase.

The dream of "settling down"

Nguyen Thi Lan Huong and her husband, born in Nghe An, have worked at Yazaki Eds Vietnam Company for 5 years. Working hard, saving money, they have now about VND200 million. But this amount cannot make their dream of settling down come true. In addition, Di An town has not yet launched any projects of social housing. Therefore, when knowing about preferential loans from Social Policy Bank, they were so happy and wished this would soon be applied to buy a house.

A housing area for workers in Tan Uyen town is spacious and airy.  

Owning a house is the dream of many migrant laborers working in Binh Duong province. To fulfill this dream, Binh Duong currently is developing 85 social housing projects with total floor area of 770.000m2 to meet the accommodation demand of low-income people. While some people have bought the dream home, there are also many poor workers, who are looking forward to supports. Therefore, laborers are waiting for preferential loans for social housing purchasing, renting.

According to Vo Van Duc, Director of provincial Social Policy Bank, low-income employees are eligible for loans when they work in enterprises inside and outside industrial parks and must have at least 20% of the contract value of social housing purchase; paid social insurance premium for more than 1 year. Eligible cases must be certified by their company to the borrowing and savings group at locality where they reside. Once disbursed, the asset (social housing) is mortgaged to the bank. The maximum amount of loan is 80% of the purchase value. The credit term is 15-20 years and maximum 25 years from the date of disbursement of the first loan at interest rate of 4.8 - 5% per annum and monthly repayment.

Preferential loans for building social housing for rent

As an industrially developing province, Binh Duong attracts many laborers from other provinces. Meeting their housing demands is urgent, so the province has encouraged the construction of social housing. In addition, households and individuals constructed about 180,000 lodging houses accommodating 540,000 workers, students and low-income people. This kind of social housing has contributed greatly to solving accommodation demands. However, a number of lodging houses have degraded; the area is too small and affects the occupants’ health. Many lodging house owners also want to rebuild, but do not have enough money, so they only make temporary improvements.

At the end of March 2018, provincial People's Committee issued a directive on enhancing lodging houses that are implementing social housing for rent in order to assist people in accessing preferential loans, tax reduction. Lodging house owners are entitled to preferential loans and pay within a period of 15-20 years. Speaking about this policy, Nguyen Van Tam, owner of a lodging house in Binh Hoa ward (Thuan An town), said: "If I get low-interest loans, I will rebuild my lodging rooms meeting standards and with many floors. Vacant area will be a parking lot and a playground for children.

Tran Thanh Liem, Chairman of provincial People's Committee, urged departments, sectors, localities, Social Policy Bank to implement right from April 2018. Some tasks are to guide the implementation of land use fee exemption, procedures for environmental impact assessment and commitment of individuals, households building social housing; To supplement funds for functional organizations to settle and support subjects entitled to preferential loan policies according to regulations; exemption from payment for conversion of land use purpose, exemption and reduction for construction tax to social housing projects of enterprises, households and individuals building houses for rent according to social housing policy of the province; instruct people, organizations to access preferential loans to build social housing.

Mr. Liem also asked People's Committees in districts, towns and city to announce the implementation of preferential policies for building social housing to people and organizations; create favorable conditions for those who want to borrow; strengthen inspection of construction permit issuance must comply with minimum standards of social housing invested by households and individuals to meet the standards and living quality for laborers.

Reported by Thien Ly – Translated by Ngoc Huynh

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