The Ministry of Construction is submitting to the Prime Minister the organization of a conference to promote social housing and the healthy and sustainable development of the real estate market.
The conference is scheduled to take place after the Lunar New Year holiday and will be chaired by Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh. According to the plan, the conference will be held directly at the Government Office and online to the People's Committees of 63 provinces and cities across the country.
The latest report of the Ministry of Construction also said that in 2024, many localities have actively promoted administrative procedure reform in planning, investment, construction, supporting the creation of real estate supply nationwide.
Regarding the field of social housing development, the Ministry of Construction said that the implementation of the project to invest in building at least 1 million social housing apartments for low-income people and industrial park workers in the period of 2021-2030 has had initial results. There have been 645 social housing projects implemented nationwide with a scale of 581,218 apartments.
In 2024, 28 projects with a scale of 20,284 units were completed, an increase of 46% compared to 2023; there were also 23 projects with a scale of 25,399 units that were licensed and started construction, 113 projects were approved for investment policy, with a construction scale of 142,450 units.
Localities have planned 1,309 locations and arranged land funds of about 9,756 hectares to develop social housing.
For the 120,000 billion VND preferential credit program for developing social housing, worker housing, and renovating and rebuilding apartment buildings, banks have committed to providing loans of over 4,000 billion VND, with loan turnover reaching 2,360 billion VND.
It can be said that never before has social housing been mentioned so frequently and received such great attention as it does today.
The government has a project to build at least 1 million social housing units in the 2021-2030 period, along with accompanying credit packages worth up to VND140,000 billion. However, in reality, from the latest reported figures, it can be seen that the target of 1 million social housing units is still quite far away.
Many businesses expressed their desire to participate more in the social housing sector, but also shared that the State "called but did not pave the way" for them to participate.
Experts assess that the social housing segment is facing five "bottlenecks" including land fund, procedures, mechanisms, interest rates and market output, leading to many difficulties in implementation.
Currently, although the implementation procedures have been somewhat "untied", there are still mechanism problems, each locality implements differently, the approval process is complicated and lengthy, discouraging businesses.
Many businesses said that the mechanism for businesses building social housing is to hand over clean land and exempt land use fees. But in reality, it is very difficult to have clean land and even if investors want to take the initiative to clear the land on behalf of the State, they will then be stuck with the procedures according to the consultation process - like a "vicious circle" that prolongs the project implementation time, causing costs for businesses.
Statistics also show that in the 2015-2023 period, only 18/63 provinces and cities nationwide have allocated independent land funds to develop social housing.
The fact that many localities have not adequately allocated this land fund is also one of the reasons leading to the delay in implementing social housing projects.
Current preferential policies of the State have not encouraged and attracted investors to participate in social housing development, and capital for social housing development is also a major obstacle.
In the current context, experts expect that in the coming time, to be able to complete the project of 1 million social housing units, it will require the cooperation of "4 houses" including the State, banks, project developers and residents.
In which, the State plays the leading role and creates a comprehensive mechanism for businesses to be more confident in implementing projects.
