Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - Accommodation for low-income workers in industrial and economic zones (IZs andEZs) has become more scarce in the face of increasing demand.

Manyexperts suggested that the Government needed to give priority to bothprocedures and capital to develop low-cost housing, according to Kinh Te & Do Thi (Economy & City) Newspaper.

NguyenHong Co, from northern Hai Duong province, said “I had to rent a house when mywife and I were working in Sai Dong IZ in Hanoi’s Long Bien district.”

“But aswe struggled to find accommodation and schools for our child, my wife had totake the child and move back home to the countryside,” Co said.

“I quitthe job in the IZ and became a xe om – motorbike taxi driver,”the man said.

This was dueto the expensive rent for a small room which could not even fit my family, hesaid.

Co’s casewas not rare.

It isbecoming more common for workers to leave rural areas and search for work inthe big cities.

Accordingto statistics by the Ministry of Planning and Investment, Vietnam will have 7.2million employees working in IZs and EZs nationwide next year.

Therewill be 4.2 million workers needing accommodation, equal to 33.6 million sq.mof housing.

Currently,about 20 percent of workers working in the IZs have found stable accommodation.

Mostmigrant workers had to rent small and shabby rooms.

Onaverage, each worker had 2 or 3 sq.m of accommodation.

Themakeshift and unhygienic accommodation was harmful to health and threatenedsecurity and social order in the IZs, said the paper.

With lowincome of 3-4 million VND (130-170 USD) per month, they could not afford betterplaces.

“I wasunable to sleep during the summer, even at night,” Huong, a worker from DiemThuy IZ in Thai Nguyen province told Thai Nguyen Newspaper.

“We couldnot afford air-conditioning,” she said.

To savemoney, the migrant workers often shared rooms with their colleagues.

“I sharea room with two others to save money,” said Trieu Van Tuan, a worker in Song Cong IZ 1.

“Thesmall room was really uncomfortable for three of us,” he said.

Formarried couples, they did not dare bring their children along.

Governmentsupport needed

TheGovernment, in recent years, has spent money to carry out a national targetprogramme on housing for low-income persons and workers in IZs and EZs.

Under theprogramme, next year there must be about 12 million sq.m of accommodation forworkers nationwide.

But sofar, only 4.1 million sq.m of housing, equal to 33 percent of the target, hasbeen completed.

Accordingto Tran Huy Anh, member of the Hanoi Architects’ Association, realestate businesses were not keen on housing projects for low-income buyers althoughthe government had offered several preferential policies.

“Lowprofit and long capital return were major reasons hindering real estateenterprises,” Anh said.

“Thisleads to a scarcity of accommodation for low-income people and especially poormigrant workers,” the architect said.

Recently,the Ministry of Finance has issued a circular offering preferential policies tohousing projects for workers of IZs and EZs.

Accordingly,businesses who carry out the projects would receive income tax deductions basedon expenses in construction, operation and lease of apartment buildings andinfrastructure work for workers of IZs and EZs.

Presidentof the Vietnam Real Estate Association Nguyen Tran Nam said that in the past, theGovernment offered a credit package of 30 trillion VND (1.3 billion USD) forhousing projects for low income people.

Thecredit package was useful to attract financial sources at the time, Nam said.

But afterthe credit package was terminated, smaller packages didn’t interest investorsany more, Nam said.

Meanwhile,Nguyen Manh Ha, Chairman of the Vietnam Real Estate Brokers’ Associations,said that housing development for low-income people was far below expectations.

This wasdue to a lack of land fund, Ha said.

“Althoughmany IZs have been completed, there was no land for building accommodation forworkers,” he said

Constructionof for-lease accommodation needs long-term investment while bank interestrates were high.

That’swhy the housing projects did not attract investors, he added.

The Governmentshould consider a reasonable interest rates of 3 percent per year to bothinvestors and house buyers so as to attract financial sources, Nam suggested.

“Moreover,administrative procedures related to project evaluations, planning approval,and investment licensing should be further simplified,” he said.-VNS/VNA