ISLAMABAD: The Sustainable Housing Ecosystems (SHE), a joint consortium between Altair, AMC and Trellis on Wednesday announced to invest 50 million dollars in Pakistan during the next three years, aimed at providing affordable homes to the lower and middle income people of the country.
“The Consortium has already invested 50 million dollars and provided 3000 houses units to the lower and middle income class,” said CEO of AMC, Jawad Aslam while addressing at a roundtable conference “Resilient and Sustainable Housing for All: Delivering for People and Planet’ here on the eve of the First International Housing Expo.
The goal of the event was to bring together key players in the housing industry and work towards building environment-friendly projects across Pakistan.
The participants noted that Pakistan has one of the lowest housing finance to GDP ratio of 0.25 percent compared to 3 percent in Bangladesh, 11 percent in India and 70 percent in EU. They observed with concern that around 30 percent, i.e., 65 million people in Pakistan are facing houses shortage and need around 10 million homes indicating that there is huge potential for investors.
Altair, a UK-based organization, provides high quality, creative solutions to the varied and dynamic challenges facing organizations in housing and they have delivered over 50,000 homes in addition to being the enabler of millions more homes in private and public ownership. AMC has developed sustainable and affordable housing projects across multiple cities in Pakistan. Trellis Housing Finance Limited provides Shariah complaint housing finance to people who are traditionally not catered by the current financial institutions in the country.
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Directors of Altair, Emma Ahmed & Ian McPherson OBE, the CEO of Trellis, Jamshed Meherhomji and the CEO of AMC, Jawad Aslam hosted the Chief Guest, Iftikhar Ali Shallwani, the Secretary Ministry of Housing & Works and other representatives from the Ministry of Housing & Works and key executives from IFC, Faysal Bank, Central Business District (CBD) Lahore, Ravi Urban Development Authority (RUDA), SECP and Zayn Capital.
There was widespread consensus among the attendees that the home building effort across Pakistan should emphasize clean the significant benefits of energy efficient and sustainable projects with minimal impact on the environment and maximizing affordability for the common man. Participants highlighted the many opportunities available in the construction sector from use of building machinery to construction material and project planning.
Emma Ahmed stressed the need for sustainable development, stating that “we have the capability within Pakistan to deliver sustainable housing at scale because we have already delivered a successful proof of concept. We must get policy, regulation and investment aligned to support a significant scaling of the solution which has the ability to completely change lives for generations to come, as well as, protecting against future economic and climate shocks.”
Jawad Aslam was of a similar opinion. He pointed out the need for affordability as a key driver within the sector. He noted that, “Government support is required to reduce the timeline for approvals and provide access to their database of pre-approved customers requiring housing. This will increase the ROI of such projects and this makes them more attractive to investors and developers alike, thus facilitating them to be executed at a greater scale and producing maximum impact.”
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022