Azerbaijan vows for social housing
By Etibar Aliyev
The newly established State Housing Agency under the President of Azerbaijan is expected to address the housing issues in the country along with revitalizing the construction sector of national economy.
President Ilham Aliyev signed a relevant decree on April 11, 2016, giving broad hope for many people to solve their housing problems. The agency with 60-member staff will manage construction of environmental-friendly and energy efficient buildings.
The new Agency will act jointly with the relevant ministries through involving contractors of multi-storey buildings, which will be chosen within the defined framework of competition in line with the law on Public Procurement in Azerbaijan.
The decree followed President Aliyev's remarks on necessary measures to decrease the impacts of devaluation on construction area and to revive non-oil sector. Addressing a meeting dedicated to the results of the first quarter and upcoming missions.
The main purpose in the establishment of the Social Housing Fund is the solution to their housing problem and improvement of social welfare by introducing to vulnerable people low prices and long-term loans.
"A program on construction of social housing will be soon presented to public," the president said. "This is a new initiative. The construction of social hosing will begin quite shortly."
Recent drop in oil prices could significantly impact the national economy of oil rich country, which saw slowdown in its economic growth by force of reducing revenues. The unpleasant downward tendency was witnessed in the construction field, which saw stagnation. The construction holds quite huge share in Azerbaijan's economy and is regarded as a sole field of non-economy. Besides, that helps to tackle many social challenges, in particular providing for new jobs.
The scaly construction activities will be carried in Baku and regions of the country. That will encourage opening new jobs, meet the demand for housing and produce different consumer needs, thus giving rise to development of 20 sectors of the economy. That, in turn, will stimulate construction sector.
Construction field made up 8.6 percent of the added value, according to official statistics. The production of construction materials decreased by 3.1 percent in January compared to 2015. The economic recession in construction is explained with drop in overall production of crude oil.
The real estate market demonstrated comparably high activity in February when the primary real estate market rose by 2.45 percent compared to the previous month. Activity was also observed in land market and market of commercial buildings, which demonstrated an increase of 7.3 percent and 4.3 percent respectively.
In general, decline amounted to 41.8 percent in dollar equivalents; real estate market decreased by 52.4 percent, land market by 41.9 percent, and commercial market by 32.1 percent.
Developing the construction sector is expected to be one of the major drives of non-oil economy to attract much investment in the country with significantly stable indices, in particular political stability. In this context Azerbaijan may expect impressive results from this business.
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