Hanoi (VNA) – A workshop sharing Germany’sexperience in the field of housing finance was held in Hanoi on November 21 by the the Vietnam Bank for Social Policies (VBSP) and the German building society, Bausparkasse Schwabisch HallAG (BSH).

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

General Director of the VBSP Duong Quyet Thang said that the bank has mobilisedfinancial resources to create policy credit capital resources, thus meeting thedemand 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 socialhousing programmes implemented by the VBSP in recent years, he stressed, addingthat they have contributed to guiding poor people in joining hands with the Stateand community in building social houses for themselves.

The programmes have helped promotesocio-economic development and poverty reduction, as well as contributing tothe 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 recommendationsfor the VBSP in the work.

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

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

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

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

Thang said that in order to promote the market and solve the social housing problemon 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 ofHousing and Real Estate Management,said the demand for social housing in Vietnam is very high, especially in bigcities such as Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, and provinces with urban andindustrial zones.

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

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

Through preferential credit sources, 568,000 houses have been built for poorhouseholds and policy beneficiaries; 105,000 houses for flood-hit households inthe Mekong Delta region; and more than 13,000 storm shelters in thecentral region. Nearly 2,000 households could borrow loans to buy and buildsocial houses. –VNA