Demand for housing of workers is currently on the rise. However, there are few projects to supply accommodation for workers as investors do not want to pour their money into these projects due to little profit.
According to the Department of Construction in Ba Ria-Vung Tau province, as of the end of 2008, the province had licensed 125 out of 194 projects in 12 industrial parks, attracting 25,200 workers. However, only five enterprises have poured money into residences for their workers, meeting around 5 % of the demand for housing of workers. According to statistics released by authorities, about 3,500 workers spend their money on buying houses, accounting for 14 %; 5,000 others live with their families, accounting for 20 %; while the remaining 15,000 workers have to hire houses, accounting for 61 %. Most of guest house areas for workers have narrow area for daily life, not ensuring standards on light, household water and environmental sanitation. Innkeepers invest only minimum money to build guest houses in order to offer a cheap rental price suitable with the income of workers.
Over the past time, many investors want to invest into houses for workers; however, the policies have not yet created belief for enterprises because of low investment effect and sluggish time for capital recovery. Recent statistics show that Tan Thanh district has licensed around 36 projects with a combined area of 362 hectares to develop 10,864 apartments and urban areas since 2005. However, workers are not capable of renting the apartments of these projects because of their high prices. The management board of industrial parks in the district forecast that in the next few years when the scale of industrial parks in the province will be expanded, the number of workers will rise considerably. There will be around 62,000 workers through 2015 and about 100,000 through 2020, causing urgency in the demand for housing of workers in the province. Apart from workers in the industrial parks, workers at industrial complexes in districts and townships are currently meeting difficulties in finding houses.
At a recent meeting with the provincial leaders, relevant agencies said that it was necessary to soon carry out incentive policies for investors in line with the regulations issued by the government in order to encourage them to pour money to build houses for workers. According to the Construction Department of Ba Ria-Vung Tau province, investors of large industrial park and new urban area projects must allocate between 15 % and 20 % of land to build houses for workers in order to ensure social security and life for residents surrounding the parks. These investors will benefit incentive policies stipulated on the resolution No. 18 issued April 20, 2009 by the government. The resolutions stimulated that these investors will access to land rental exemption and benefit incentive policies in value-added tax, be exempted from corporate income tax within four years and pay only 50 % of corporate income tax in the next five years, as well as pay only 10 % of corporate income tax over their operation time.
The province expects these incentive policies to encourage investors to build much more houses for workers in the coming time.
Hoai Duc
Vietnamese
