Attending were Mr. Ha Quang Hung - Deputy Director of Housing and Real Estate Market Management Agency, Ministry of Construction; Dr. Dang Viet Dung - President of VFCEA; Ms. Nguyen Truong Nhat Phuong - Vice Chairman of Binh Duong Provincial People's Council; Ms. Nguyen Thi Ngoc Xuan - Deputy Head of the Provincial Delegation of National Assembly Deputies; leaders of the Department of Construction of the provinces, cities and enterprises.
Ms. Nguyen Truong Nhat Phuong - Vice Chairman of Binh Duong Provincial People's Council presents a congratulatory flower stand from the Provincial Party Committee - People's Council - People's Committee - Provincial Committee of the Vietnam Fatherland Front to the Seminar
The seminar is an opportunity for leaders and managers of the Construction industry, enterprises, and investors interested in social housing development across the country, experts together to exchange and solve problems related to policies in order to have useful recommendations to contribute to the draft Law on Housing (amended).
Need to get rid of policy problems
Addressing the seminar, Dr. Dang Viet Dung - President of VFCEA said that, for many years, taking care of housing for people has always been concerned by the Party and State and identified as a key tasks in socio-economic development, especially promoting social housing development to provide accommodation for low-income people and workers in industrial parks.
By the end of 2022, the whole country has completed 301 projects of housing in urban areas and worker housing in industrial parks, with a construction scale of about 155,800 units with a total area of more than 7,790,000 m2. This result has helped hundreds of thousands of low-income households and hundreds of thousands of workers to have improved housing and safe housing.
However, the performance process of policies on social housing has also revealed some shortcomings and limitations in terms of land fund for social housing, investment procedures, finance and beneficiaries of social housing policies.
Dr. Dang Viet Dung - President of VFCEA speaks at the Seminar
The land fund for social housing development is lacking because some localities have not paid due attention and have not actively set aside enough land fund for social housing development when approving urban planning, rural construction planning, industrial park construction planning, research and training zone, etc. in accordance with the Law on Housing. Some localities even rely on only 20% of the land fund for social housing obtained through the development of commercial housing projects and urban development projects.
According to Dr. Tran Ngoc Chinh - Chairman of the Vietnam Urban Development Planning Association, the State needs to create a clean land fund for social housing development projects, towards social housing with low purchase, lease or lease purchase prices to suit with the financial capacity of the beneficiaries. The arrangement of land fund for social housing projects must be most favorable so that all sectors can actively participate in this segment.
During the past time, many policies on social housing have been issued such as loans with preferential interest rates, exemption from land use fees and land lease amounts; exemption, reduction of value added tax, corporate income tax, etc. However, the proposed policies have not solved the core problem of ensuring reasonable profits for investors and reasonable house prices for beneficiaries.
According to Ms. Tran Thi Ha - Executive Director of Le Phong Group Joint Stock Company, there is a hard rule on the profit range that investors are entitled to such as a standard profit of no more than 10% (for social housing sold) or no more than 15% (for social housing for lease or lease purchase), of the total investment cost (including loan interest, if any) without fully accounting for other valid and reasonable expenses such as sales organization expenses, enterprise administration expenses, and prolonged capital recovery time. Regulations that investors can only sell houses after 5 years of use with 20% of the social housing area for lease in the project causes waste because the leased area is often not filled. The determination of lease, lease-purchase, and selling price of social housing on the basis of design and cost estimates as prescribed at the time of appraisal is not close to reality at the time of making completion documents and finalization of works to put the project into operation. Procedures for determining land use and land lease fees are cumbersome, and commercial bank loan guarantees are difficult.
Enterprise representative makes recommendations at the Seminar
Mr. Tran Thu Tam - Director of Investment Division of Bcons Group proposed allowing investors to decide the lease price, lease purchase price, selling price of social housing, the State to conduct post-inspection according to the price at the time of making the completion documents and finalization of the works to put the project into operation so that investors can soon mobilize capital, or allow the application of a ceiling price. The State boldly grants credit packages with low interest rates, about 1-2%/year.
One of the reasons leading to the delay in investing in social housing during the past time is that the procedures for selecting investors and accepting investment policies in social housing are complicated and overlapping. Beneficiaries ofsocial welfare are specified in detail, leading to lengthy requirements for procedures and approval. Therefore, the enterprise recommended building a database of land and population to determine the accommodation conditions of social welfare beneficiaries. Expanding the object of buying and leasing social housing (removing the regulation that social housing in industrial parks is only for workers in industrial parks); simplifying procedures for people to easily access social housing.
Experience from Binh Duong
Binh Duong currently has more than 3 million people, with more than 50% of them being immigrants. The province determines that ensuring social security, especially stable accommodation is an important task for workers to feel secure in their work and long-term attachment to the province.
Thanks to the implemented synchronous solutions, Binh Duong has become the leading locality in social housing development with many innovative and effective models.
Mr. Vo Hoang Ngan - Director of the Provincial Department of Construction speaks at the Seminar
Mr. Vo Hoang Ngan - Director of Binh Duong Department of Construction said that in the 2011-2015 period, Binh Duong province has attracted 82 social housing development projects, with a total floor area of 3.8 million m2, meeting for 238,325 people, with a total investment of 19,034 billion VND. In which, there are 43 projects under the Social Security Housing Project invested by Becamex IDC Corp. There have been 23 projects completed and put into use, with a total floor area of 431,488 m2, meeting the needs of 37,500 people. In the 2016-2020 period, the province has invested 1.33 million m2 of floor /2 million m2 of floor, reaching 65% of the plan.
Lessons learned from Binh Duong are to mobilize different resources to solve the problem of social housing. In particular, the social security housing apartment model of Becamex Corp has brought effective results.
Over 250 hectares of land is planned exclusively for social housing areas and workers' houses. The land plots are arranged attached to the overall area, enjoying the same location conditions as commercial housing areas. The distance to the industrial parks is convenient, easy to access in terms of public transport as well as common facilities in terms of community space, health care, and education.
Architect Nguyen Hong Hai - Planning Advisory Board of Becamex IDC Corp presents at the Seminar
For low-income workers, Becamex proposed a leased housing model, or a type of boarding house that helps provide accommodation in the initial period when people need to learn and get used to the new living and working environment. By 2022, more than 30,000 rooms for lease have settled for tens of thousands of workers across major industrial parks in the province.
When they have a longer-term job and accumulated capital, workers have the opportunity to buy a house to stabilize their place of residence in the locality, so they register to buy a house under the project. The urban areas of VietSing (Thuan An City), Hoa Loi, Dinh Hoa (Thu Dau Mot City) or My Phuoc (Ben Cat Town) are the success proof of the social housing model when meeting the right needs, lifestyle and suitability of the buyer. Up to now, over 10,000 apartments have been reached to workers, officials, students, workers of all professions, etc.
Becamex IDC Corp is continuing to promote research towards the affordable commercial housing segment to meet demand as workers move up the income ladder. At that time, people can also find affordable mid-range housing products.
Becamex Dinh Hoa social housing area
Binh Duong will continue to closely follow the needs of workers to make appropriate adjustments, promote the construction of new social housing areas with reasonable prices through the application of new construction technology and design improvements. At the same time, developing a mechanism to mobilize capital, encouraging the wide participation of all economic sectors in the development of social housing; simplifying legal procedures, speeding up implementation, and supporting policies to help people access housing. All for the common goal of bringing long-term stability and career to workers.
Reported by Phuong Chi- Translated by Thanh Tam