Vietnam Supports Poor People Building Houses

Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has signed a document stipulating financial support for the poor in building houses amid miserable living conditions in many parts across the country. Under the regulations, poor households which own a dilapidated house and cannot afford to build a house will be eligible to borrow at most VND25 million ($1,146) each from Vietnam Bank for Social Policies. The term of loans would be 15 years with a grace period of five years and an interest rate of 3%/year. The government expects that the move would help 311,000 households build houses. Vietnam, the 90-million people country, has around 5.2 million poor people and they find hard to access soft loans though the country has borrowed billions dollar from foreign funds to implement poverty reduction programs. (VnEconomy.vn Aug 12)