The Real Estate and Housing Association of Bangladesh on Tuesday said the government’s move to allow undisclosed money for the housing sector in the next
financial year would not create a bubble in land and apartment price.
‘The real estate companies will become active following the budgetary support which will create healthy competition and push down the price of apartments,’ REHAB vice-president Abdur Rashid said at a post-budget briefing at the Ruposhi Bangla Hotel in the capital.
He said the land price would also not soar in the next financial year.
‘Every year a huge amount of undisclosed money is being laundered abroad which will now remain in the country. We don’t determine land price. The entire sector remained slow for a long time. I think the government’s move to allow undisclosed money in the sector will help to overcome the stagnancy in the coming financial year,’ he said.
The REHAB leaders said the government should reduce the registration fees for land and apartments which is now 13 per cent.
‘In the neighbouring countries the registration fees vary from 7.5 per cent to 5 per cent but the rate is very high in our country,’ said REHAB joint secretary Md Wahiduzzaman.
He also requested the government to allow single digit loan facility for the housing sector to boost the sector.
‘Since 2009 there was no loan for the sector with single-digit interest but to fulfil the dream of the middle income people single digit interest rate should be reintroduced,’ he said.
He also thanked the government for addressing some core problems of the housing sector in the proposed budget for 2013-14 financial year.
He also said the government’s move to allow undisclosed money in the housing sector would encourage more investment in the sector which would help the real estate companies to provide more housing facility to the citizen.
The REHAB claimed that its 1,183 members were sitting on around 25,000 unsold flats at the moment.
‘We are victims of no gas connection, high bank interest rates and the collapse of the capital market,’ Mizanur Rahman Dewan, treasurer of the REHAB told reporters.
Finance minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith on Thursday in the proposed budget for the next financial year said the undisclosed money could be legalised through investing in the housing sector.
The Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Monday said allowing investment of undisclosed money in the unproductive sectors would affect negatively the ongoing industrialisation of the country.
-With New Age input
