Solutions for building social housing for low-income people and industrial park workers

In recent years, the Party and the State have issued many resolutions and policies directing provinces and cities to promote social housing construction programs to meet the needs of low-income people. However, housing for low-income people is still a difficult problem in localities across the country. Many generations of workers' families and freelancers have had to rent houses for many years. Without their own place to live, low-income people face many difficulties in health, spending, taking care of children, and improving their spiritual life, so effective solutions are needed to effectively build social housing for low-income people and industrial park workers.

Illustration photo source Internet

Accordingly, social housing and worker housing will be developed at prices suitable to the affordability of low-income and middle-income households in urban areas and of workers and laborers in industrial parks and export processing zones. The State encourages economic sectors to develop housing to create conditions for everyone to have accommodation according to the market mechanism, meeting all people's needs, and at the same time, have policies to support housing for social policy beneficiaries, low-income people and the poor who have housing difficulties in order to contribute to political stability, ensure social security and develop urban and rural areas in a civilized and modern direction. The Government also sets a target of striving for a total of about 1,062,200 completed apartments in localities by 2030. Of which, about 634,200 apartments will be completed in the 2025 - 2030 period.

Thereby, identifying the investment in developing social housing for low-income workers as an investment item in the medium and long-term capital source of the locality. In the immediate future, focus on coordinating with the State Bank of Vietnam to implement the Credit Program of about 120,000 billion VND and specific credit packages to lend to investors and home buyers of social housing projects and workers' housing projects at interest rates about 1.5-2% lower than the average medium and long-term VND lending interest rate of state-owned commercial banks including Agribank , BIDV, Vietcombank, Vietinbank on the market in each period and non-state commercial banks that are qualified for each credit package.

To ensure the goal of social housing development by 2030, about VND 849,500 billion is needed, mainly from socialized capital, to complete the set goal by 2030 of completing 1,062,200 social housing apartments and workers' housing. Therefore, it is necessary to focus and prioritize credit for lending to social housing projects and workers' housing to ensure social security. In which, provinces and centrally run cities urgently complete the development of local housing development plans, clarifying the goals of social housing for low-income people, industrial park workers and local leaders must identify this as their personal political task; establish and approve specific implementation plans for investment in social housing projects for each year and each stage from now until 2030 to ensure local needs.

People waiting to submit applications to buy social housing

At the same time, there must be solutions to accelerate investment in construction of projects under implementation, projects with investment policies, or planning, arranging and publicizing cleared land funds for the development of social housing and public housing for businesses to pay attention and propose projects. Ensure that by 2030, at least 1 million apartments nationwide will be completed for investment, and at the same time, there must be a responsibility to publicize and introduce social housing investment land funds to businesses for research and investment proposals; balance and arrange local budgets to encourage and provide additional incentives to call on economic sectors to participate in investing in social housing development in the locality.

For large real estate businesses and corporations, in addition to developing urban and housing projects, it is necessary to pay more attention to investing in developing social housing for low-income people and industrial park workers in localities to ensure social security and achieve the set goals. Enterprises producing and trading in industrial parks that employ many workers and laborers need to pay attention to building accommodation to support workers and laborers of the enterprise to rent.

Determining the price before selling, leasing, or leasing-purchase of social housing invested in and built with non-budgetary capital must be appraised by provincial-level state agencies, which also causes time and costs for businesses. The preferential policies for investors in social housing and worker housing projects that have been issued are not attractive enough. The standard profit of the entire project in the case of selling social housing must not exceed 10% of the total investment cost; for social housing for leasing or leasing-purchase, the profit must not exceed 15% of the total investment cost, and there are no real incentives such as exemption from land use fees, 50% tax reduction, etc.

But in fact, the investor is not entitled to enjoy it, but the people are, because according to the law, the state's incentives cannot be included in the selling price, rental price, or lease-purchase price of social housing; tax incentives for investors of social housing projects and workers' housing projects for rent only cannot be implemented because the tax law does not have regulations, does not attract or encourage investors. Regarding the rental area in social housing projects, it is stipulated that social housing projects must reserve at least 20% of the social housing area in the project for rent and the investor can only sell it after 5 years of putting it into use; in reality, many projects cannot rent out this area, leading to the situation where the apartments are left empty and wasted while the investor is not allowed to sell, leading to not being able to recover capital, causing social waste and reducing investment attraction in social housing for rent./.

Bui Tue