Nine social housing projects for low-income earners with more than 4,100 apartments measuring 205,500 sq. m were completed and put into use in 2019, which did not meet the target set by the national housing development strategy to 2020 with a vision to 2030.

Nine social housing projects for low-income earners with more than 4,100
apartments measuring 205,500 sq. m were completed and put into use in 2019.
(Illustrative image. Source: VNA) 

According to the Ministry of Construction, a total of 207 social housing projects with more than 85,810 apartments and total floor area of nearly 4.3 million sq. m have so far been completed nationwide. Another 220 projects with 179,640 apartments measuring over 8.98 million sq. m are under construction.

Meanwhile, the strategy aims for 12.5 million sq. m of social housing by 2020.

Reports from 60 out of 63 provinces and centrally-run cities in the country said among 2,256 commercial housing and urban area projects with a combined area of 43,783 ha, only 1,040 projects designate land for social housing with a total area of 3,359 ha, meeting only 36.34 percent of social housing demand by 2020. The remaining 1,216 projects have not carried out their obligation of building social housing in the form of 20 percent of their land or contribute money equivalent to the value of 20 percent of their land.

Another difficulty in social housing development is the limited source of preferential capital for the work.

The Construction Ministry said it is working on solutions to address those obstacles.