The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is mulling the possibility of granting incentives to contractors and suppliers of socialized housing to help bring down the cost of housing units.
At a recent webinar hosted by the Organization of Socialized Housing Developers of the Philippines, Trade Undersecretary Ruth Castelo said buying a house, no matter how small, will not be the priority of Filipinos in the next six months.
But Castelo is nevertheless hopeful
“things will be much better” in the second quarter of 2021.
“We will see how we can request manufacturers to provide a price cap on construction materials used for socialized housing, or maybe device a way where manufacturers can have a maximum price of construction materials if it is intended for use on socialized housing,” Castelo said in a text message.
Castelo said the scheme may be used as a permanent incentive scheme to those in the socialized housing business and not just as a recovery measure to the pandemic.
Jefferson Bongat, president of OSHDP, said the group as far back as 12 years ago had been clamoring for incentives.
“The developers, when they do socialized housing they get incentives but the contractors and suppliers which contribute to socialized housing don’t get anything,” Bongat said.
But Castelo said the DTI cannot control prices of construction materials which are not considered basic commodities.
The group noted socialized housing developers will be encouraged to pursue these projects if they can offer good prices and catch up with demand.
Based on the price monitoring activities of the DTI, prices of construction materials are generally stable. However, it was observed that prices of cement increased by 2 to 6 percent from pre-enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) prices.
This may be attributable to logistics cost that was greatly affected by the temporary hampered movement of the supply chain during the ECQ period, Castelo said.
She said demand also possibly had an effect on this due to surge in essential construction projects such as building of health or quarantine facilities and other projects of the Department of Public Works and Highways.
There has also been fluctuation of prices of construction materials especially in Visayas and Mindanao.
