The Construction Ministry said that it has received proposals for 566 projects from real estate businesses on building houses for students, workers and other low-income earners.

Of these projects, 267 have been registered to build 5 million sq.m of houses to cater for more than 800,000 students. These projects will use capital sourced from the State budget and are expected to be completed over the 2009-2010 period.

Another 110 projects will focus on providing 6 million sq.m of floor space during the 2009-2015 period for workers employed in industrial zones nationwide.

About 1 million workers will be able to benefit from these projects, which are estimated to cost a total of 25.5 trillion VND, 24.4 trillion VND of which will be mobilised from businesses with the rest coming from local budgets.

As many as 189 projects have registered to build 166,400 apartments with a total floor space of 7 million sq.m for other kinds of low-income earners.

These projects will cost an estimated 28.6 trillion VND to build and will be able to provide accommodation for 700,000 low-income earners from now to 2015.

The Vietnamese government has encouraged businesses to get involved in building houses for low-income earners and will apply preferential treatment in terms of procedures, land and tax policies for those businesses, said Deputy Construction Minister Nguyen Tran Nam./.