Deputy premier says 50 million Russians need improved housing

BBC Monitoring International Reports

January 8, 2004

Saransk, 8 January: In Russia about 50 million people need their housing problems resolved. This was announced here today by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Vladimir Yakovlev. In the country as a whole, there is currently 87m square metres of dilapidated housing, he said.

According to the deputy prime minister, it is planned to adopt about 30 laws this year which make it possible to resolve many housing problems and, in particular, "to launch the so-called institution of mortgage lending across the country". Yakovlev thinks that in Mordovia housing problems are being tackled better than in the country as a whole.

The "young family" federal programme has enabled 496 families in Mordovia to improve their housing, including 223 young families in rural areas. For this, R101.8m was allocated, of which R50m was from the federal budget and R51.8m from the republic's budget.

The model developed in Mordovia, which includes the provision of mortgage loans, has been deemed to be the most promising one by the Russian Education Ministry collegium.

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Source: ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow, in Russian 1453 gmt 8 Jan 04 / BBC Monitoring (c) British Broadcasting Corporation 2004. Distributed by FluentMedia, a service of Tribune Media Services.

Copyright (c)2004 by Tribune Media Services