JakartaPost-Oct 7
A top advisor to president-elect Prabowo Subianto has said that the incoming administration plans to build 3 million housing units per year and that smaller businesses rather than big construction conglomerates are to get the largest part of the pie. Speaking at an event organized by the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) on Monday, Hashim Djojohadikusumo said Prabowo wanted to make the housing sector “massive”, given its multiplier effect on overall economic activity. “Big contractors, go ahead. Everybody has a stake in the pie. The pie is very big,” said Hashim, after explaining that the government would only allow the property groups to get involved in the development of 1 million apartments per year in urban areas. He suggested that the development would involve foreign financing and advice: “I have met with the leadership of HDB (Housing and Development Board) in Singapore; HDB will help us as an advisor and consultant, the name [of the company through which this would happen] is Surbana Jurong. They’re willing to help us.” The other 2 million units, meanwhile, are planned for rural areas and to be handled by medium, small and micro enterprises (MSMEs), cooperatives and village-owned businesses (BUMDes). In addition to newly constructed houses, this also includes renovated properties. Hashim, who is also Prabowo’s brother, argued that the housing development plan might bump up the archipelago’s economic growth by “about 1 percent” and that “the money will circulate within the villages” instead of “flowing abroad”. The rough picture comprises building or renovating 20 to 30 houses in rural areas every year for Indonesia’s 75,000 villages, which brings the total to 1.5 million to 2.25 million annually. He went on to say that there was a backlog of 10.7 million housing units in the country, on top of 27 million households living in residences categorized as uninhabitable. The plan is to provide housing or renovating credit to “farmers and fishermen” who generally already own a plot of land, “which means land procurement or acquisition will not be a problem”, Hashim claimed. Read more at:
