House developers and experts yesterday discussed housing policies for low-income earners in urban and industrial parks at a conference in Hanoi.
The conference was held by the Vietnam Federation of Civil Engineering Association and the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor .
Conference participants said that the country needs 1 million houses by 2020 for low-income earners in urban districts while construction companies can just provide over 10,000 houses per year. In industrial parks, by 2020, there would be 4.2 million laborers and they need 33.6 million meter square land for building houses; currently around 20 percent of laborers have permanent accommodation.
Social house supply is limited at present and house prices are high ranging from VND500 million (US$22,573) to VND1 billion (US$45,146) which is a big sum beyond low-income earners’ reach.
Tran Ngoc Hung, chairman of the Vietnam Federation of Civil Engineering Association, said that housing investors neglected a regulation that requires investors to allocate 20 percent of land for building social houses in any housing projects while authorities have not paid inspection.
Worse, Vu Hong Quang from the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor said that in the period 2010-2015, 110 social housing projects for workers were launched to meet accommodation demand of over 900,000 workers in localities yet a few of the projects were completed.
Mr. Tran Ngoc Hung said that the most difficulty is land for building social houses. He petitioned to plan the dilapidated apartments which were knocked down to be commercial apartments, apartment for resettlement and apartments for low-income earners with small areas from 25-45 meter square.
Empty land of factories which are forced to move to suburban districts should be for social housing projects.
Along with these measures, the government should have preferential policies for social house investors including simplifying formalities.
