Salaried, low income groups: Govt facilitating construction of housing units: PM

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan said on Tuesday that with record exports, remittances, and tax collection, Pakistan’s economy is moving in the right direction.

While speaking as chief guest at Pakistan Housing Authority Officer Residentia and PHA Apartments on Tuesday, the PM stated that Bloomberg also stated that Pakistan’s economic trajectory was moving in the right direction for the next 10 years.

The premier said that Pakistan’s economic condition would get better in the coming days as the housing industry, which was not allowed to close during the Covid, was driving the growth.

The PM also directed to ensure timely completion of the 88,000 housing units and congratulated the ministry for completing the 12 years stalled projects and thereby, enabling the people to move into their houses.

The premier said banks in Pakistan had not been ready to lend to common man due to absence of foreclosure law and it took two and a half years for the government to get the law passed from the courts.

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After the law was approved, he said the government requested the banks to train their people for providing service to the common man.

He said that as a result of government efforts for the first time banks had approved Rs124 billion projects for the construction sector. He said Rs140 billion had already been disbursed to the people for the construction of houses and government was subsidizing low-cost houses interest rate to make the houses affordable for the people.

The PM further stated that mortgage financing had been negligible of 0.2 percent in Pakistan as opposed to more than 80 percent in the US, the UK, and other countries, and consequently, working (salary) class was unable to think about its own house. He said the government had created facility for mortgage financing for salary class and Housing Ministry had started project of 88,000 units for government employees with most of them to be completed in 2022.

He said the housing industry could lift the economy because more than 30 industries were attached with the housing sector from cement to sanitary fitting. The housing sector has the potential to put the economy on growth (drive the economy) and this sector has been fast growing during the last two years with record sale of cement and steel.

However, the premier regretted that there was some decline in sale due to global super commodity cycle owing to corona. He said despite that there was a boom of construction sector in the country and the World Bank had confirmed recently Pakistan growth of 4.37 percent and reflected that economy was growing rapidly despite corona.

He said the income of labourers had increased due to construction activities and farmers benefited most as additional Rs1,400 billion had gone to rural areas on account record sale of five crops. He said that rural areas where poverty was high benefited from increase in their income and that was shown in the World Bank survey.

The PM said that WB survey also showed that in four indicators of the Bank, the poverty in Pakistan had reduced despite corona and that happened because the government had not allowed the construction industry to close during the Covid.

He directed the Housing Ministry to ensure timely completion of 88,000 housing units.

NNI adds: Prime Minister Imran Khan Tuesday said that the government was facilitating construction of affordable housing units for the salaried and low income groups through provision of subsidies and waver of interest rates on the house financing.

The prime minister appreciated the ministry of housing to complete the decade old stalled housing projects for the government employees, and stressed that the authorities should also ensure timely completion of further 88,000 housing units.

The prime minister was addressing the inauguration ceremony of the Pakistan Housing Authority (PHA) Officers Residencia, Kurri Road. The project was conceived in 2008 on 90 acres of land provided by the Capital Development Authority.

The total cost of the project was Rs6.5 billion, consisting of 588 grey structure housing units in the three categories. The project was launched for the federal government employees.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022