Construction of the Thăng Long Green City housing project started on October 14 in Kim Chung new urban area, Đông Anh District, Hà Nội as a joint venture of the Hà Nội Housing Development and Investment Corporation (Handico) and the Viglacera Corporation. – Photo kinhtedothi.vn

HÀ NỘI – Hà Nội’s property market will have more supply of social housing products for low-income people by 2020 in order to address the paucity of those products on the market combined with the over-supply of commercial houses.

Construction of the Thăng Long Green City housing project started on October 14 in Kim Chung new urban area, Đông Anh District, Hà Nội as a joint venture of the Hà Nội Housing Development and Investment Corporation (Handico) and the Viglacera Corporation.

The Thăng Long Green City with a total investment of VNĐ1.3 trillion (US$55.58 million) is expected to be completed by 2020, supplying 1,588 apartments for the market, meeting the demands of about 5,330 people.

This product is expected to have selling price of VNĐ12.6 million per square metre and rent at VNĐ50,000 per square metre per month.

In addition, Hà Nội has some social housing projects under construction, including the Kiến Hưng - Hà Đông social housing project with 432 apartments and the AZ Thăng Long social and commercial service complex in Lai Xá Village, Kim Chung Commune, Hoài Đức District with nearly 1,500 apartments.

As the city faces a shortage of apartments for low-income people, including workers, those projects are expected to add supply to the social housing fund of Hà Nội, contributing to the social security of the capital city. This is also a part of the Government’s housing development strategy by 2020 and vision to 2030 as well as the ciyt’s housing development plan during 2016-20.

According to those plans, the country needs accommodation for three million workers, low-income people and people with meritorious services to the revolution, including one million people in Hà Nội.

However, since the VNĐ30 trillion housing stimulus package ended in 2016, the development of social housing projects in the country, including Hà Nội, has been slowing down and some of the projects have had to shut down due to a lack of funds.

Hà Nội now has nine social housing projects selling and leasing apartments while 25 projects are under construction and are expected to be complete by 2020. These projects are located in the districts of Thanh Xuân, Hoàng Mai, Hà Đông, Nam Từ Liêm, Long Biên, Gia Lâm, Thanh Trì, Đông Anh, Mê Linh and Hoài Đức, reported the Thời báo Tài chính Việt Nam (Việt Nam Financial Times) newspaper.

The nine social housing projects have not met the demands of the low-income people in the capital city.

Nguyễn Văn Đính, vice chairman of the Việt Nam Real Estate Brokerage Association, said investment in social housing projects was not the first choice of many businesses, because the businesses could not gain much profits from these projects like commercial housing projects.

In addition, the social housing projects receive land tax incentives but those bring limits on the sale price and profit while the prices of construction materials and labour are not reduced, he said.

According to the Ministry of Construction, in the first half of this year, the programme of social housing development for low-income people in urban areas has completed 86 projects supplying about 34,700 apartments for the market. Meanwhile, the social housing development programme for industrial park workers has had 100 projects finishing construction with about 41,000 apartments. However, this supply has only partly met the demand for social housing in the domestic market. — VNS