Professor Dang Hung Vo: "Government should stop making social housing"

Speaking about future alternatives after the 30-trillion-Vietnam dong (roughly US$1.32 billion) package for social housing has ended, Prof. Dang Hung Vo, also former Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment recommended focusing on affordable housing segment instead of social housing.

Accordingly, social housing is fully subsidized as the State has a hand in the whole process. However, does the State has enough power to cover all those stages?

Investors can themselves manage the segment if the conditions are favorable. The State can support by introducing tax breaks or tax exemption and does not need to spend cash.

Besides, he also opposed the idea that the quality of social and affordable housing is automatically not good. For investors, especially private ones, quality directly affects their reputation. Therefore, they have to maintain the quality of their products.

Prof. Vo emphasized that if corruption was eliminated, the quality would be guaranteed.

Apart from social housing, the renovation of old apartment blocks is another problem. According to a recent report, out of about 2,500 old blocks in the country with 100,000 residents, up to 600 are in critical condition.

Prof. Dang Hung Vo said, firstly, we should renovate the whole block at a time instead of one unit by one, which will be a lot more efficient. Secondly, it is impossible to gain consent from every resident, so we should adopt the comprehensive rules.