More social housing projects will be developed with the involvement of the State, enterprises, and the public, to meet the people's demand, according to Minister of Construction Trinh Dinh Dung.

However, Dung said, social housing development needs more time and should be carried out on a long-term strategy.

According to the minister, many countries, which have an average per capita income of US$30,000-40,000 or even $50,000 and many decades of social housing development history, still have social housing projects.

The minister stressed that Viet Nam is in the first stage of social housing development, while its average per capita income is about $2,000.

In November 2011, the Prime Minister approved the National Housing Strategy. Two years later, the Government issued Decree 188/2013ND-CP on social housing development. Adopted in 2014, the housing law has specific regulations on social housing development.

"In Viet Nam, social housing development is the responsibility of not only the State and enterprises but also the whole society, in which the State plays a core role," said Dung.

However, according to Dung, mechanisms and policies are still at the initial stage of implementation and need to be amended and perfected.

Dung noted that Viet Nam has achieved remarkable results in building social housing units at many industrial parks in northern BacNinh, Thai Nguyen and southern Binh Duong and Dong Nai provinces. Social housing projects have met the demand of thousands of workers and people in these areas.

"Some existing policies will be revised and perfected in the coming time. I'm sure that with the involvement of the Government, enterprises and the people, more social housing projects can be built to satisfy the people's demand," Dung remarked.

The minister added that social housing development has been an important and difficult task as support from the State Budget has been limited and most of the customers are in the low-income group. The field offers low profit and that does not attract investments from enterprises.

Dung pointed out that the field needs more focus and specific measures. Laws related to housing and social housing in the country should be perfected.

The State should play a core role in building support policies, while local authorities must be given a decisive role in social housing development projects. The Government should promulgate more policies on capital, land, and credit sources to help enterprises investing in the field and people buying social housing properties.

"Overall policies must be implemented stably with a long-term strategy, especially credit loans for buying social housing properties should be granted on low interest rates and flexible mechanism," added Dung.

VIR