Social housing loan programs contribute to sustainable Development Goals

(VBSP News) A workshop sharing  experience in the field of housing loans and savings was held in Hanoi on November 21 hosted by the the Vietnam Bank for Social Policies (VBSP) with collaboration with the German building society, Bausparkasse Schwabisch Hall AG (BSH). 

The event heard that as many as 2,000 households in 55 provinces and cities nationwide have been provided with loans for social housing projects, at the outstanding total of nearly 500 billion VND (over 21.3 million USD). On average, each household was able to borrow around 261 million VND.

General Director of the VBSP Duong Quyet Thang said that the bank has mobilised financial resources to create policy credit capital resources, thus meeting the demand for loans for people with low incomes and other policy beneficiaries, especially in the field of social housing.

The Government, relevant ministries, and agencies have given due attention to social housing programmes implemented by the VBSP in recent years, he stressed, adding that they have contributed to guiding poor people in joining hands with the State and community in building social houses for themselves. 

The programmes have helped promote socio-economic development and poverty reduction, as well as contributing to the national new-style rural development programme, Thang noted. 

Michael Dorner, director of international cooperation projects for the BSH, shared the German bank’s experience related to housing saving loans and gave recommendations for the VBSP in the work. 

According to Dorner, the BSH mobilises capital from the contribution of employees through savings contracts. 

Deputy General Director of the VBSP Nguyen Van Ly said the workshop contributes to illustrating the model of housing savings and the experience of Germany and other countries around the world in the field. 

It introduced a legal system for protecting depositors of social housing, as well as the operation principles of the housing savings system and experience in developing German building societies in Eastern European countries and China.

The social housing loan programme under Decree No.100/2015 / ND-CP is a new lending programme, under which the VBSP is gradually completing measures to facilitate the management of capital sources. 

Thang said that in order to promote the market and solve the social housing problem on a mass scale, it is important to look past the role of the State and banks, instead raising public awareness of saving up for housing. 

He also underlined the need to build the housing saving model for low-income labourers, saying that this will help reduce the burden on the State budget. 

Vu Van Phan, Deputy Director of the Ministry of Construction's Department of Housing and Real Estate Management, said the demand for social housing in Vietnam is very high, especially in big cities such as Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, and provinces with urban and industrial zones.

The Ministry of Construction has estimated that from now until 2020, in urban areas nationwide more than 1.7 million dwellers will be in need of housing and about 1.7 million migrant workers will need to have stable places to stay in.

The VBSP is implementing 20 policy credit programmes, including four on housing loans. 

Through preferential credit sources, 568,000 houses have been built for poor households and policy beneficiaries; 105,000 houses for flood-hit households in the Mekong Delta region; and more than 13,000 storm shelters in the central region. Nearly 2,000 households could borrow loans to buy and build social houses.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     Source: VNA