VN ministry set to focus on social housing
VI ETNAM’S deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung asked the Ministr y of Construction to pay attention to the development of socia l housing projects and homes for low-income earners while enhancing urban management and creating favourable conditions for construction businesses.
Dung was speaking at a conference on Friday to rev iew results achieved by t he ministr y last year and ra ise orientations for t his year.
Dung said t hat the market demand for socia l housing projects remained high while supply was limited, stressing t hat t he ministr y needed brea kthrough policies to boost socia l housing development.
The management on urban development, industria l and economic zones must also be enhanced to ensure the appropriateness to the urban housing development programme, Dung said.
In addition, t he ministr y should focus on coordinating with relevant ministries and agencies to develop solutions for treating ash released by thermo power and fertiliser plants into building materia ls, Dung said, adding t hat it was important for env ironmental protection.
Minister of Construction Pham Hong Ha said that the huge volume of ash released from thermo power and fertiliser production was posing t hreats to t he env ironment.
Ha said t hat i n Januar y, t hree ministries, including t hose of industr y and trade, construction and natura l resources and env ironment would meet to develop solutions to promote the use of ash in producing building materia ls.
Ha also said the Ministry of Construction would develop an action plan to implement the Government’s resolutions about socio-economic development targets and improving the business environment and national competitiveness.
According to Deputy Minister of Construction Le Quang Hung, the sector had a good year last year.
The ministr y’s report pointed out t hat the production va lue of t he construction sector grew 9.2 per cent last year, meeting t he target set for t he f ull year and contributing significantly to socio-economic development.
Hung said the ministr y last year a lso focused on administrative reforms to create favourable conditions for construction businesses wit h 41.3 per cent of administrative procedures eliminated and 47.3 per cent simplified out of 215 business prerequisites.
The ministr y a lso completed t hree law compilation projects last year, including t he Law on Architecture, the Law on Urban Development and Management and project of amending the laws on construction, housing, rea l estate business and urban planning.
He said Vietnam ranked 20th out of 190 economies by the score of dealing with construction permits by the World Bank’s report on the ease of doing business.
The rea l estate and building materia l markets had seen stable development, Hung said.
The ministr y’s report said t hat housing prices did not see considerable fluctuations last year compared to 2017.
Real estate inventories tota lled 22.8 trillion dong ($ 980.4 billion) as of December 20, a drop of 82.24 per cent against the peak recorded in t he first quarter of 2013.
A tota l of 58 million sqm of housing area was completed last year. Some 5,800 homes for low-income earners were completed with a tota l area of 290,000sqm. Average housing area per person now reached 24sqm.
The building materia l market met domestic demand while t he focus was a lso placed on developing new, env ironmentally-friendly materia ls, t he report said, adding t hat 55 out of 63 prov inces and cities have a lready developed plans to eliminate baked bricks and use unbaked bricks. As of November, unbaked bricks were estimated at eight billion units, accounted for 30 per cent of t he tota l brick output.
Hung said construction management was also enhanced nationwide with planning of 58 out of 63 provinces and cities approved to ensure sustainable urban development. There were 828 urban areas throughout the country, statistics showed.
The ministr y’s appraisa l of constr uction investment a lso helped cut costs by 2.6 per cent, equivalent to $1.6 billion, according to t he ministr y’s report.