VLADIMIR PUTIN
ARCHIVE OF THE OFFICIAL SITE
OF THE 2008-2012 PRIME MINISTER
OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
VLADIMIR PUTIN
ARCHIVE OF THE OFFICIAL SITE
OF THE 2008-2012 PRIME MINISTER
OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
VLADIMIR PUTIN
“At the end of last year, the government issued an instruction to the relevant bodies to find additional resources for supporting mortgage loans in order to make them accessible to the public. I have already said more than once that interest rates on mortgage loans should not exceed 11%, and the down payment should not be more than 20% of the cost of a flat. Calculations show that such terms will allow many more people to take advantage of mortgage loans, because they cannot afford to pay the 14%-15% the banks require today. Even 11% is high, and should be lowered in the future.”
“We have two key goals for housing. First of all, we must consistently fulfil the government's obligations to supply housing to particular demographics, such as war veterans, people who took part in the Chernobyl cleanup, army servicemen, etc. I'm also talking about relocating people out of dilapidated housing and other similar programmes.”
“The state corporation is called the Housing and Utilities Reform Fund, and I would like you to remember this. The regions should not only co-finance your projects and the necessary funds for resettlement and repair of housing, but also submit programmes on the reform of the housing and utilities sector. They must de-monopolise this sector, create the partnerships of housing owners and help them on their feet, and also encourage the creation of companies that will not bring housing into disrepair on such a large scale, but help to make the next step, that is, maintain it in good order and to make repairs when necessary.”
“At the end of the day, increasing construction is the only sure way to meet people's housing demands. It is important to provide construction companies with the widest range of sites connected to all necessary infrastructure, including roads. We are relying on the Housing Construction Fund to address this issue.”
“There is another important issue we must discuss today. We have said many times this year that we will allocate another 250 billion roubles to revitalise the mortgage market. These additional funds will be allotted to reduce the mortgage interest rate. I would like to stress that this is our objective. Our objective is not just to allot funds, but actually reduce mortgage interest rates.”
“We set a goal for ourselves of commissioning 52 million square metres of housing. In fact we did even better, commissioning almost 60 million square metres of housing. To be exact, 59.8 million square metres. The main thing is to keep up and gradually increase construction. Most importantly, construction projects under way must be finished and new projects launched.”
“The work to provide housing to demographics to which the government has special commitments is being carried out entirely on schedule. This includes service members employed at the Ministry of Defence. As we promised, we will settle the issue of providing service members with permanent housing in the near future. The work on providing housing to veterans of the Great Patriotic War has gathered pace as well. We have made serious progress in the programme to relocate people out of housing that is beyond repair. A total of 130,000 families, 130,000 people, will receive new housing; legal formalities are underway. I would like to emphasise that we must meet all our commitments to provide people with housing.”
"In 2010, 44.4 billion roubles have been allocated for the construction and purchase of more than 45,000 flats for service members. I would like you to know that until very recently this was thought to be an impossible task. People are weary, but they are resigned to waiting for years for their housing problem to be solved. I am referring to service members. Some thought that it was an impossible task. We should complete it in 2010."
"We must meet all the housing construction targets and continue to move people out of old housing that is no longer safe. I would like to repeat that it is our challenge and our obligation to the people who still live in slums to clear these slums and enable people to live in normal, modern conditions. All World War II veterans and Defence Ministry servicemen should be provided with housing. While making use of market mechanisms, we should lower the interest on mortgage loans. You will remember that we are committed to providing 250 billion roubles for these purposes through Vnershekonombank. The mortgage rate should be cut to 10-11% at the first stage. In the longer term - and I have just been discussing this with my colleagues - we should seek to bring it down to 7% and less. This will address people's housing problems and stimulate construction and related industries."
"A new federal target programme has been proposed for modernizing housing and municipal services. Currently, our main policy tools in this sector are the Fund's programmes for rebuilding housing and municipal services, which have proved to be most effective and in demand. As I have already said publicly, the fund was established by selling assets previously owned by the Yukos Company. We use resources from the Fund to resettle residents living in hazardous housing and repair dilapidated housing. However, the fund was only established to operate on a temporary basis - until 2012. In addition, the scale of problems in this area is so great that they require additional resources. Along with major renovations of blocks of flats, serious efforts are also needed to refurbish local municipal utilities networks, introduce resource-saving technologies and improve the quality of municipal services. These all are priorities of the aforementioned target program."
"The Housing Construction Fund must work more effectively. This year alone it has prepared 1,500 hectares of federal land for development on which 6 million square metres of housing will be built."
"We must fulfil our commitments to individual categories of citizens to make housing more accessible and promote buying with mortgages, the most universal instrument used throughout the world. Every effort will be made to maintain the current pace of housing construction. Modern housing standards should be introduced. The outdated prefabricated "boxes" should be replaced with comfortable, energy-efficient and environment-friendly homes, including low-rise houses. Unfortunately, we have not been paying enough attention to that topic. What we need is essentially a programme of large-scale construction of inexpensive housing. Its share in the total housing stock is now about 5%. It should be brought to 25%, let me stress, not less than 25%."
"Of course, 14.5% - an average interest rate on mortgage loans - is too high for many people. Incomes in Russia are not high enough to meet these loan requirements. For mortgage to become affordable for a broad range of people, we should lower the interest rate to 10%-11%."
"You know that pension funds are used in all countries as an instrument and a source of long-term loans, which is crucial for mortgage lending. Given the volume of saving, including the funds managed by Vnesheconombank, we could think about using these instruments in Russia, although very carefully and with maximum guarantees. VEB is currently managing 690 billion roubles ($24 billion) of pension accruals. A month ago, the Government approved a new strategy for investing pension accruals managed by VEB. Up to 20% of these funds, or some 100 billion roubles ($3.5 billion), can be invested in mortgage bonds of Russian banks."
"We must encourage the construction of affordable, comfortable, energy efficient, eco friendly housing. We could make low-rise construction one of our priorities. It is essential to develop an industry of building materials and introduce relevant technology. We must adopt standards and determine the price range of economy-class housing as soon as possible. Smart general plans for property development will help reduce the costs of housing construction."
"We must pull our people out of the slums. This is one of our major social and political tasks. This is simply our duty to our citizens who still live in such miserable conditions."
"Housing is one of the most important economic and social issues. It has remained more urgent in Russia than in any other civilized country for decades.The provision of housing for war veterans and army servicemen is a priority, and as we have promised, we will do everything in 2010 to fulfill these government commitments."
"It is particularly important that we both support the construction industry now and make substantial progress on housing problems. First of all, we need to be more proactive in allocating land for residential construction, in city-planning, and in resolving issues with utility networks. If we fail to do this, we are at risk of losing the momentum in residential construction that we have worked so hard to gain recently."
"We have arranged smooth interaction with natural monopolies, and are negotiating with banks for crediting communal infrastructural construction. As the result, the first land plots can and must be fully equipped for construction within a few months, with an emphasis on building low-rise homes."
"We need to launch new fields of the housing project this year, as we have planned, and start reclaiming vacant and misused federally owned land plots. An ad hoc fund for the promotion of housing construction has been established with this purpose. Active cooperation with the regions has helped the fund to obtain information about approximately a thousand such land plots, with the total area of a million hectares."
