ZAHEER ABBASI

ISLAMABAD: Prime Min-ister Nawaz Sharif has directed the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to come up with a comprehensive scheme by taking into loop other departments to provide affordable housing facilities to the people.

“Give me a presentation on the comprehensive scheme at the earliest,” said Prime Minister addressing the concluding session of the two-day international conference on “Affordable Housing and Mortgage Finance,” here on Friday. The SBP Infrastructure, Housing and SME Finance Department organized the conference. Nawaz said that he wants the government housing schemes not be turned into slums. The government wants to launch housing schemes on mass scale to provide housing facilities to the people. The Prime Minister said the government has to fulfil the housing needs of 40 million families. He added that the government must construct new cities for provision of housing facilities to people. He suggested that private sector should give their suggestions and coordinate with the government for launching housing schemes. Nawaz added that the government is ready to contribute on its part in this regard. The proposal, according to official, was to provide Rs0.2 million as down payment and Rs0.8 million as loan for house costing Rs1million. The Prime Minister considered the scheme needs some improvement to make it comprehensive by taking into loop other departments to ensure basic facilities.

Finance Minister Ishaq Dar said the government intends to activate the housing industry to enhance the country’s GDP growth. He said there is a shortage of nine million houses in the country. He said a Housing Finance Credit Guarantee Scheme will be launched to provide loans for houses. He said House Building Finance Corporation has also been revamped to facilitate people.

The Finance Minister said recommendations of the conference will be incorporated in the forthcoming budget to be announced on the 5th of next month. He said in the budget special schemes will be announced for agriculture, housing industry, aviation and backward areas. The Governor SBP said that the conference provided a forum for initiating dialogue process between financial institutions and government.

The objective is to provide affordable housing mortgage finance. The conference was attended by a large number of participants including CEOs/presidents/executives of banks, etc. The speakers were invited from various countries to share their experiences with respect to mortgage finance in their respective countries. Surprisingly, private media was barred from attending the concluding session of the conference….only state media was allowed to cover the event.