Premier: State to Support Construction of Affordable Rental Housing

Bratislava, November 22 (TASR) - The state will support the construction of affordable rental flats of appropriate quality by cooperating with private investors, Premier Robert Fico (Smer-SD) and Transport Minister Jozef Raz (a Smer-SD nominee) told a press conference on Friday, adding that the first two contracts represent a commitment to 1000 flats. "Under the previous government, a kind of image was created that the state would build social rental flats with the help of private investors. However, we're not talking about social rental housing at all. We're talking about a programme for the construction of traditional rental flats, where the state has decided to cooperate with private investors and, under certain conditions, to draw benefits from it," said Fico. These are standard rental flats of reasonable quality, which will be offered on the Slovak market under favourable conditions. The premier explained that the state has set up its own state agency for housing support, which will maintain a list of interested parties. "In the first two contracts we have a commitment to build 500 flats each, which means a total of 1,000 flats," he added. According to Fico, the criteria for this programme were set during the previous government in such a way that only companies that manage at least 10,000 rental flats and have a turnover of more than €1 billion could enter it. "At the government meeting we took the decision to change these criteria significantly. Today, anyone who manages at least 1,000 flats and has a value of around €100 million can apply to cooperate with the state and sign a contract," he stated. am/mcs