Rossiiskaya Gazeta: “Back to the Books on Mortgage Loans”
Vladimir Putin briefly played the role of a student last Friday when he visited a Tyumen school that turned out to be anything but ordinary.
The Prime Minister's visit to Tyumen was timed to coincide with the meeting of the Presidium of the Presidential Council for Priority National Projects and Demographic Policy, which discussed the state of education and the development of the mortgage system. Putin chose the Ural region to discuss one of the country's most pressing social spheres because Tyumen has been making spectacular strides in its education system according to Education and Science Minister Andrey Fursenko.
The Prime Minister was so eagerly awaited at School No 88 that administrators switched off the bells announcing breaks. Not that it made much difference in the daily routine. Children were dancing in the choreography room and playing ball in the gym. But in mathematics class, they were engrossed in more serious matters: they were calculating the sum of monthly interest under a mortgage loan. The data were as follows: an apartment costs 2 million roubles and the down payment is 800,000 roubles. The interest rates of VTB 24, the Western Siberia Commercial Bank, and the House Mortgage Loan Agency were then displayed on an electronic scorecard showing that all the three market players charged 15% a year. The pupils were playing a web-quest on the topic "Buying a flat under the mortgage scheme" that seemed virtual not only in the sense of the medium but because for most Russians, buying a flat is an untenable dream.
Walking into the classroom, Vladimir Putin joined the lively conversation among the pupils and chose to share his nearly sensational ideas.
"Something is missing in your problem. You should look at the down payment," he said and used an electronic marker to write the figure "20%" on the board.
He changed the figure opposite the Western Siberian Bank to 11%, which will shortly be the rate charged by all banks. Under a national programme due to come into effect in April 2010, state-supported banks will be obliged to issue loans for housing at 11% a year with a down payment not to exceed 20%. Loans in the regions may be as large as 3 million roubles, and in Moscow and St Petersburg, they will reach 8 million, Vladimir Putin explained. Loans will be made available only to buy new flats. Thus, the move will also create jobs in the industry, and, as the Prime Minister argued, new housing will be cheaper than an equivalent housing unit in the secondary market because pre-crisis building materials were more expensive and increased costs. He also promised that the interest on housing loans will soon be 6% a year and the down payment will be under 15%.
In 2007-2008, the amount of mortgage loans issued was 1.2 trillion roubles, and Putin admitted that the economic crisis has affected the system. The government has allocated 250 billion roubles to the House Mortgage Loan Agency and the VEB to help the industry.
But times are changing for the better, or so the government hopes. Mr Putin is less sure about the positive outcome of the Russian school reform. When RG asked him about the strengths and shortcomings of the Soviet school system, Putin said that "it was more of a system then. The present-day system in the world and in Russia is in flux."
"The aim of our search is quality. Take a typical school: the headmaster says that salaries have doubled due to the introduction of remuneration pegged to the number of pupils (from 9,000 to 22,000 roubles on average – RG)," said the Prime Minister.
Pierre Sidibe
