Nguyễn Văn Sinh, Deputy Minister of Construction. — Photo nld.com.vn

Nguyễn Văn Sinh, Deputy Minister of Construction, talks to the newspaper Thời báo Kinh Tế Việt Nam (Việt Nam Economic Times) on Việt Nam’s goal to invest in the construction of 12.5 million square metres of housing floor space from 2016-2020

Do you have any comments on the social housing development programme in Việt Nam?

Every citizen has the right to have a legal residence, this is written in the Vietnamese Constitution. Over the years, the Vietnamese Government has employed many policies and launched a lot of special housing programmes for the poor, particularly those who live in urban areas or workers in industrial zones.

Notably, on November 30, 2011, the government ratified a Strategy on Housing Development for People.

The strategy defined two types of housing - commercial housing and social housing, of which the social housing programme is for poor people, people with low incomes, Government staff, people in the armed forces, workers, students and others.

The Government has set aside a credit package of VNĐ30 trillion (US$1.3 billion) with preferential interest rates for enterprises engaged in building social housing projects and people wanting to either buy or rent apartments in these projects.

The national social housing project has been implemented for five years. What has been achieved so far?

We have completed 207 social housing projects with 86,000 apartments with a total floor area of 4.3 million square metres. Meanwhile 220 construction projects with 180,000 apartments are under construction. In addition, 107 social housing projects have been developed for people with low incomes, with a total floor space of more than 2,240 square metres. Another 147 projects with more than 92,000 apartments with total floor space of almost 4.6 million square metres of floor space are under construction.

Last but not least, the housing development programmes for workers in industrial parks have completed 100 projects with about 41,000 apartments having a total floor space of more than 2 million square metres.

What will the Ministry of Construction do to achieve the targets the National Strategy on Housing Development?

To make sure these targets will be achieved by 2020, the Ministry of Construction (MOC) has urged all involved ministries, sectors and localities to strictly implement Instruction 03 which was issued by the Prime Minister in 2017.

Meanwhile, the MOC has urged provincial People’s Committees to reserve 20 per cent of land areas in their new urban towns/cities for social housing development projects.

In the long run, local authorities and enterprises should be engaged in developing houses and apartments for lease. This is a common trend in many foreign countries. The Ministry of Construction believes that to achieve the target in the Strategy on Housing Development, support is needed from all agencies and localities and the people nationwide. — VNS