Demand For Housing Units to Rise up to 500,000 in 20 Years

Demand for housing units to rise up to 500,000 in 20 years

Due to increasing demand for housing units, there exist tremendous opportunities for investment in real estate and the housing sector.

“The demand for houses would reach 500,000 within the next 20 years,” Secretary Board of Investment (BoI) Mushtaq Malik said while chairing the first meeting of the Advisory Board on Housing and Infrastructure here on Thursday.

He said housing backlog stood at 4.30 million in 1998 which, according to current projections, stands at 6.19 million, he said, adding that 350,000 housing units were established in year 2006 with an investment of Rs150 billion plus cost of land for the construction.

Malik said that main aim of the advisory board meeting with in the BoI was to addressed the issues faced by the private sector and put forward the recommendations to the relevant authorities.

He also asked for one-window mechanism in different sectors of the economy to attract foreign investment to develop infrastructure in the country. Positive suggestions and constructive critics would be able to enhance institutional work performance, he added.

The meeting was also attended by high officials of the government and private housing construction, cement manufacturing organisations who presented their suggestion before the meeting.NHA officials informed the members of the board about the vision 2030 to develop an industrialised and prosperous Pakistan through rapid and sustainable growth.

NLC officials informed that the NLC has valuable pieces of land across the country for joint investment in public-private partnership. Regarding the cement industry, the board was informed that domestic demand in 2006-07 was 21,034,278 tons which shows a 25 per cent increase. Per capita cement consumption was 137 kg while immense potential is there for cement export to earn foreign exchange for the country.