This is one of the contents of the draft Resolution on piloting special policies for social housing development, which is currently soliciting opinions.

According to the Ministry of Construction, from 2021 to now, the whole country has implemented 655 social housing projects with a scale of more than 593,400 units. Of which, 103 projects with 66,755 units have been completed. The Ministry assessed that investment in this type of housing is still slow, mainly because bidding to select investors must carry out administrative procedures and take a long time of 6-12 months.

Even when the project has an approved construction plan and is included in the local land use list, investors still take nearly 300 days to sequentially carry out the steps from approving the policy to signing the project contract. In Ho Chi Minh City, in case of flexible implementation of parallel procedures, they still take about 200 days.

Faced with this situation, the Ministry of Construction proposed a pilot project for the provincial People's Committee to assign investors to social housing projects without bidding (ie designated bidding). The locality selects investors based on the proposal of the Department of Construction.

According to the draft, within 30 days from the announcement of the project, if only 1 enterprise registers to meet the conditions, the Department of Construction reports to the Provincial People's Committee to assign this unit as the investor.

When 2 or more enterprises register to implement, the selection of investors is prioritized according to criteria and order of experience, such as having done many social housing projects, financial capacity (with a higher equity ratio), progress (proposing the shortest implementation time) and resettlement support compensation plan (choosing the unit proposing to advance more money). In cases where investors have the same capacity and meet the same criteria, the Provincial People's Committee will choose the enterprise that registered earlier.

The drafting agency also proposed that the selection of investors for housing projects for the armed forces be under the authority of the Ministry of National Defense and the Ministry of Public Security. Similarly, the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor will be responsible for selecting investors for projects using trade union financial resources for workers and laborers.

According to the Ministry of Construction, the above proposals will help the State attract more resources to participate in investing in the construction of social housing, helping to increase supply, shorten implementation time and ensure social security policies.

In addition, this agency also proposed to study and establish a National Social Housing Development Fund from the budget and other legal capital sources to have a sustainable, long-term cash flow for social housing.

Currently, the country has 42 funds in operation, of which 95% are development investment funds. However, these funds are facing difficulties due to the lack of additional sources, making it difficult to provide long-term capital for social housing development.

Once established, the National Fund will be directly invested in creating a source of supply and managing social housing. The Fund also has a role in supporting interest rates for loans that do not require collateral or supporting businesses investing in projects...

Regarding the profit rate, the Ministry of Construction proposed increasing the maximum rate from 10% to 13% for investors implementing social housing projects. Previously, the Ho Chi Minh City Real Estate Association proposed that the Government consider increasing the profit rate for social housing project investors to 15%. The Hanoi Department of Construction also proposed increasing this profit rate to 15-20% but faced many opposing opinions.

Anh Tu