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500,000 housing units in Kingdom soon to ease residential woes

Saudi Housing Minister Shuwaish Al-Dhuwaihi said on Sunday that the government has been working hard to solve the problems encountered in completing the construction of 500,000 units of housing all over the Kingdom on time.
“The Ministry of Housing has been closely working to ease the residential problem in the Kingdom,” Al-Dhuwaihi said.
Al-Dhuwaihi said that the ministry has completed some of the 48 housing projects in various parts of the Kingdom.
Al-Dhuwaihi was the guest speaker during the Second Construction and Projects Forum, where he discussed reasons behind delays in completing construction work and obstacles in closing government housing projects.
Al-Dhuwaihi said that the housing sector recently made key decisions, which include issuing a mortgage law and ordering the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs to abstain from disrupting grant lands and hand over plans and government lands to the Ministry of Housing, which will re-plan these lands.
The housing sector has also been tasked with implementing infrastructure projects and providing citizens with developed land, together with loans, to build their houses.
He said that the Ministry of Housing is about to launch two national projects to streamline the sector.
The first is concerned with how to determine clear-cut entitlement and priority standards for eligible citizens to acquire land in a bid to ensure fairness.
The second is concerned a rent network entitled “Ejar,” which is meant to regulate housing rent and which will ensure the rights of owners and tenants.
He said that the Saudi government also recently launched land development and infrastructure projects in different parts of the Kingdom, such as Riyadh, Madinah, Al-Kharj, Dammam, Jeddah, Tabuk, Al-Ahsa and Qatif.
Projects are also being designed for 80 different locations all over the Kingdom spanning an area of 106.5 million sqm and that contractors would be asked to offer proposals for the construction, he said. A ministry spokesman earlier said that projects have also been accomplished in Buraidah in Qassim and that two more projects were also completed in Abu Hajjar and Sabya in Jazan.
Speaking on the occasion, Fahad M. Al-Hammadi, head of the contractors committee at the Riyadh Chamber of Commerce and Industry, he noted that the Ministry of Housing has been closely collaborating with the contractors, as well as the Riyadh Chamber of Commerce and Industry, for the construction of more housing units.
“We value the participation of the Ministry of Housing, which is dealing with some 50 contractors and consultants who are working on 56 housing projects for the government,” he said.
He added that “we in the private sector indeed realize the importance of establishing a good relationship with the ministry in increasing the number of housing units all over the Kingdom.”
“The forum is a platform where to speak about important issues involving contractors, who are vital components of the economy and contribute more than 7 percent of the Kingdom’s gross domestic product,” he said.
He noted that capital assets of the contracting sector amount to about SR154.5 billion.
“The sector also has a 42-percent share of the labor market in the private sector,” he said.
The forum was organized by the Riyadh Chamber of Commerce and Industry in cooperation with the Ministry of Housing and the Al-Eqtissad Group.