Priority should be given to perfect institutions relating to the development of housing and real estate market, Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai has said.

Hai, who is also head of the Central Steering Committee on Housing Policy and Real Estate Market, made the remarks at the committee’s first meeting in 2013 in Hanoi on February 22.

The Deputy PM asked the committee to establish more interdisciplinary inspection missions nationwide to focus on dealing with difficulties in capital and capital financing progress and lending interest rates for housing programmes, as well as take the initiative in planning residential areas resilient to climate change.

He especially pointed to the necessity to keep a close eye on the use of the 20 percent of land reserved for building social houses for low-income people.

The real estate market needs to be restructured, Hai affirmed, urging the committee to continue completing housing programmes based on the National Housing Development Strategy in 2013.

At the meeting, Minister of Construction Trinh Dinh Dung said that solving difficulties in the real estate market needs to be implemented in line with the national housing development strategy.

He asked the Government to direct localities to pay more attention to developing social housing programmes as the country still lacks many social housings.

In January, at a meeting with the National Assembly's Economic Committee on ways to solve the real estate market's current downturn, Dung reported that the real estate market experienced a difficult period last year with high inventories and prices declining in all segments.

He predicted there would be huge demand for social houses in the coming years given the country's 32 percent urbanisation rate.-VNA