It is necessary to take synchronous measures to ease difficulties for the real estate market, Minister of Construction Trinh Dinh Dung has said.

These include the restructuring of real estate market and solutions to resources, particularly capital, for the market, the Minister said in a television interview last week.

“We restructure real estate products to balance supply and demand to serve customers,” the minister said.

The move will be associated with realising the national housing strategy, especially houses for low-income earners, he added.

According to the minister, a majority of low-income people cannot afford houses.

The Government has recently introduced a credit package worth 1 trillion VND (47 million USD) to support low-income earners, public employees, workers, and armed forces to buy or rent houses.

In the coming time, it is implementing the second phase of Programme 167 to help more than 500,000 poor households in rural areas, 70,000 policy beneficiaries, and 60,000 poor households in storm-prone areas in the northern and central regions afford their homes.

Providing loans for house purchase and rent is also a way of supporting businesses engaged in real estate development, the minister affirmed.

However, to ensure the people with demand to access credit package, coordination between agencies such as banks, the Ministry of Construction and local authorities is needed, he said.

Dung said he believes that the package will be implemented well, because it carries both political and socio-economic missions and signifies humane values.

Apart from the solution on capital, the minister mentioned the restructuring of property products, stressing urban development projects.

This ensures people’s purchase of houses which fit their pockets, he added.

Regarding foreigners’ house purchase in Vietnam , Minister Dung said only 121 foreigners have been so far granted the house ownership since the National Assembly’s Resolution 19 regulating the matter took effect on January 1, 2009.

He blamed tight regulations relating to eligible buyers, types of houses, and ownership duration for that small number of foreigners owning houses in the country.

The Prime Minister has recently agreed with the Construction Ministry’s proposal of formulating a policy that will enable more foreigners to buy property in Vietnam.-VNA