Mexico City, Jan 22 (IANS/EFE) Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto Wednesday presented a housing plan geared toward ensuring the construction of half a million homes to benefit a total of six million people nationwide.
The programme, which includes administrative and fiscal measures, will spark investment in the sector estimated at 370 billion pesos ($25.5 million), said the president upon announcing the national housing plan for 2015.
Peña Nieto said that Mexico needed some 9.4 million homes and emphasised that in 2014 the construction sector rebounded and grew at an annual rate of four percent, generating more than 135,800 jobs in the process.
He announced that Infonavit will cease collecting housing titles from low-income people, will offer loans to buy appliances and will convert all loans into pesos.
He said that loans and subsidies will be available for families who leave the informal economy and begin paying taxes. The prospective homeowners will be able to obtain mortgage loans, he added.
The president asked the finance and social development ministries to prepare a housing programme for members of the armed forces.
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Young people, disabled people, emigrants and the elderly will also be provided with the ability to buy a house with financing from the development bank.
"With these fiscal stimuli, this important sector will have better conditions of liquidity to build more homes and at less cost," the president said.
He added that a coordination mechanism will be established among the social development ministry, the National Housing Council and entities in the states to support urban development with an eye toward providing the new homes with the necessary infrastructure and services.
--IANS/EFE
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