Over 22,200 households have signed borrowing contracts worth 10.1 trillion VND (466 million USD) with commercial banks under the Government’s 30 trillion VND (1.4 billion USD) housing credit stimulus scheme, said Head of the Department of Housing and Real Estate Market Management Nguyen Manh Ha.

Some 43 social housing projects also applied to borrow nearly 6 trillion VND (279 million USD). Of the total, 2.4 trillion VND (111.6 million USD) has been disbursed for 40 projects.

Ha said that the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BIDV) has become the leading bank, loaning to 7,581 households from the credit package with a total value of nearly 7.5 trillion VND (348.8 million USD).

BIDV also committed to provide loans worth 3.7 trillion VND (172 million USD) for 22 projects in line with current regulations, which include low-income housing projects in northern Hai Duong province, central Hue city and central Da Nang city.

In addition, the Vietnam Joint Stock Commercial Bank of Industry and Trade (VietinBank), the Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam (Vietcombank) and the Vietnam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Agribank) also made efforts to accelerate credit package implementation with committed loans of 4.7 trillion VND (218.6 million USD), 2.6 trillion VND (120.9 million USD) and 1 trillion VND (46.5 million USD), respectively.

Some small commercial banks such as Orient Commercial Joint Stock Bank (OCB), Tienphong Bank (TPBank) and Vietnam Export Import Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Eximbank) are also actively joining in lending activities under the package.

Chairman of the Vietnam Real Estate Association Nguyen Tran Nam said that the 30 trillion VND (1.4 billion USD) credit package aims to help labourers access housing, thereby stimulating the property market.

However, the credit scheme’s progress has not met expectations due to limitations on social housing project supply, project investor capacity and legal procedures on real estate contracts, among others.

According to experts, diversifying the housing supply as well as facilitating conditions for customers to access loans from banks will be useful to accelerate the housing stimulus package.

Launched in June 2013, the credit package offers loans with a maximum interest rate of 5 percent to individual borrowers for no longer than 15 years.-VNA