Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 7
By Fatih Karimov - Trend: Iran's Housing Ministry prioritizes completing Mehr Housing Plan, so that all the residential units are projected to be completed by the end of the current Iranian year (March 20).
Hamed Mazaherian, Iran's deputy housing minister, said the completion of the Mehr Housing Plan is the government's top priority, Iran's IRIB reported on Jan. 7.
Based the plan, 2.3 million residential units should be built. Some 1.674 million units have been so far built, of which 1.252 million have been transferred to owners, he explained.
The Mehr Housing Project was approved in 2004 during the incumbency of former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It had envisaged building 50,000 units per year for low-income people.
Under the Mehr plan, real estate developers are offered free parcels of land in return for building cheap, residential units for first-time buyers, who receive 99-year mortgages for the purchase of the land.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has said that the Mehr Housing Project caused 45 percent inflation in Iran.
However, the administration is inevitable and obliged to complete the project because the people's trust should not be damaged, he said.
In November 2013, Iranian transport minister Abbas Akhoundi said that more than 10 trillion rials (about $300 million) has been allocated to complete the semi-finished residential units under the Mehr Housing Project in Iran.
Edited by CN