Businesses want to do it but face "barriers"
Recently, at the Conference to deploy the Project "Investing in the construction of at least 1 million social housing apartments for low-income people and industrial park workers in the period of 2021-2030", Deputy Minister of Construction Nguyen Van Sinh informed that there have been many mechanisms and policies to remove "bottlenecks" and promote the development of social housing.
However, it is noted that in some key localities with great demand for social housing, the investment level is still limited compared to the Project's target by 2025. Specifically, Ho Chi Minh City has 7 projects with 4,996 apartments, meeting 19%; Hanoi has only 3 projects with 1,700 apartments, meeting 9% or some localities have no projects starting construction in the period from 2021 to present such as Vinh Phuc, Nam Dinh, Ninh Binh, Quang Ngai, Long An...
In the past, to implement a social housing project, investors had to face many administrative procedures (Illustration photo).
Also according to the Ministry of Construction, regarding the VND120,000 billion credit program, there are currently 28 localities announcing a list of 68 projects eligible for loans (loan demand of more than VND30,000 billion). Up to this point, in 5 localities with 6 social housing projects, the capital disbursement is about VND415 billion. This reality shows that the disbursement of the above preferential credit package of VND120,000 billion is still slow compared to the actual needs of enterprises investing in the social housing segment and housing for workers.
Mr. Nguyen Van Dinh, Vice President of the Vietnam Real Estate Association, shared that many businesses have grasped the market demand for the social housing segment, but when they started implementing it, they encountered many difficulties: “Entangled from planning, land fund, procedures, implementation process to investor process and output, target selection. The conditions are complicated, profits are controlled, the selling price is fixed, so they recalculated and found it unattractive, leading to why there are not many social housing projects and businesses cannot absorb support capital from the State”.
Discussing the current situation of slow implementation of social housing in many localities, Professor Dang Hung Vo, former Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment frankly said: “To implement a social housing project, investors must face many administrative procedures. This is a “horror” for businesses, leading to considerable anxiety and fear.”
According to Professor Dang Hung Vo, administrative procedures not only “make it difficult” for businesses, but the issue of enjoying social housing also has many obstacles. Although social housing is a segment reserved for low-income people, the procedures and conditions for workers to access to buy and rent social housing are very difficult.
“Obviously, the social housing segment still has a lot of room for development, but businesses are not interested in the segment, which can be partly explained by the mechanism, and the land fund for social housing in many localities is not prioritized. What makes businesses hesitant is the rather overlapping and complicated investment and land allocation process; the procedures are lengthy, from the time the project is approved, licensed until the product is brought to market, it often takes a long time,” analyzed Professor Dang Hung Vo.
Besides, the former Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment said that the arrangement of capital for building social housing is also difficult and has not met the requirements.
How to speed up social housing?
Sharing with reporters, real estate expert Nguyen Van Duc emphasized that the purpose of social housing is a good policy, helping the poor have the conditions to have housing, but the way of doing it has not been effective. Although the new regulations in the Housing Law (amended) are more open, this business owner emphasized the State's hand in participating in building social housing.
To speed up the construction of social housing in the coming time, experts say that it is necessary to quickly review administrative procedures (Illustration photo).
“Our company and many other companies have invested in building social housing for the poor, but after a while, they could not survive. At that time, when building social housing, there were problems with administrative procedures, bank interest rates, prices, and long construction times, causing real estate companies to suffer double losses. That is why very few companies invest in social housing today,” he shared.
Speaking to the press, Mr. Nguyen Anh Que, Chairman of G6 Group, said that a social housing project of this enterprise in the West of Hanoi has not been able to be implemented for many years due to difficulties in investment procedures: "Our project is auctioned land, so whether we need to make an investment policy or not, that is the only problem, but it has not been completed since 2020. The second problem is that state agencies, especially Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, are too slow in carrying out investment procedures, leading to losses for investors and people without housing."
Meanwhile, a real estate CEO shared that the biggest reason why businesses are not interested in social housing is the profit factor. Social housing is controlled by price, and the cost of selling to businesses is of course limited in terms of profit percentage. Agencies and departments control prices differently from commercial housing, which is controlled by price and limited in price, and the price law is very complicated, so there are incentives, but those incentives have not been deeply implemented for businesses to actually implement in the market.
In addition to tax and land use fee incentives, the State Bank is currently implementing a VND120 trillion credit package with interest rates 1.5 - 2% lower than the market interest rates for medium and long-term loans, to provide loans for the development of social housing and workers' housing. However, the biggest problem currently lies in the mechanism - policy, process - procedure. Complicated regulations, lack of detailed instructions, while cumbersome procedures that take a lot of time have discouraged businesses interested in social housing.
Sharing from businesses shows that the investor's profit when building social housing is only controlled at a maximum of 10%. If the project is only 1 year behind schedule, it is considered unprofitable, so businesses really want to remove legal bottlenecks, speed up investment procedures, and at the same time have solutions to increase profits for investors when building social housing:
Mr. Tran Van Khai, Standing Member of the National Assembly's Committee on Science, Technology and Environment, shared about this issue: "There must be profit, the State will regulate through tax tools, through allowing the accounting of reasonable costs into the cost price, which will help businesses not to suffer losses when investing in building social housing and have a true profit of 10% for businesses to participate in. The State must participate in supporting through legal policies, land, and preferential loan capital so that businesses can enjoy real profits".
To speed up the construction of social housing in the coming time, experts said that it is necessary to quickly review administrative procedures in the direction of minimizing unnecessary administrative procedures; have policies to create stronger incentives for investors and real estate businesses to participate in implementing social housing projects.
N.Giang
Source
Comment (0)