14 July 2003 11:28
Russia looks to private investment for housing, but mortgages fail to take off
Moscow, 14 July: More than 5m Russian families are now on the waiting lists for housing. And, according to surveys,
60 per cent of the country's citizens are in need of improved housing, Chairman of the State Construction Committee
Nikolay Koshman said in his speech to a Russian-American conference on mortgage crediting today.
According to Koshman, his committee has succeeded in stalling the decline in the implementation of building projects
over the past three years. He said nearly 31-33m square metres of residential space are now built every year.
However, this rate is only sufficient to provide new housing to 1.5 per cent of the country's population.
Koshman said the situation in the residential sector is close to critical. Over the past four years, the number of slum
dwellings and houses about to crumble has more than doubled.
Mr Koshman noted that the building of new residential facilities is "badly in need of investments".
"Reliance on the budget resources has no prospects," he said.
Meanwhile, the mortgage crediting programmes that are widely used in the west have not yet become popular in Russia
owing to the low paying capacity of the population, the high risks of playing on the mortgage crediting market and the
exorbitant interest rates, speakers at a conference noted.
[ITAR-TASS news agency] |
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