Building Homes for Returning Uzbek Migrants
Building Homes for Returning Uzbek Migrants
A government plan to build more homes in rural areas seems to be in part a response to the return of labour migrants.
On August 3, President Islam Karimov issued orders to boost housing construction in order to improve life in the countryside. The programme has been costed at 175 million US dollars.
A company called Qishloq Qurilish Invest has been tasked with producing standard architectural designs for homes and associated infrastructure, as well as doing the building work itself.
NBCentralAsia observers say the rural housing plan comes in the wake of the global financial crisis which has hit the economies of Russia and Kazakstan, where between two and four million Uzbeks – according to various estimates – have been working as labour migrants.
“The crisis in Russia and Kazakstan has forced many Uzbek migrant workers to come home,” said Ravshan Nazarov, an economist in Tashkent. “Most of them formerly lived in rural areas.”
Tashpulat Yoldashev, an Uzbek political analyst based abroad, estimates that between five and seven per cent of the expatriates have returned to Uzbekistan so far.
Another reason for building more housing is that the 27 million population is growing fast, once again especially in rural areas.
NBCentral Asia observers say that despite this pent-up demand, actually selling the new homes could be difficult.
Construction materials are relatively expensive, and this will add to the price at which Kishlok Kurilish Invest will retail its homes. Potential buyers have little income to buy even on credit, mortgage facilities are undeveloped, and the banks are currently short of cash themselves.
Few people in the countryside would be able to afford a 20,000 dollar bank loan, since with a ten-year term it would cost them around 322 dollars a month. This is in a country where the official minimum monthly wage is set at just under 34,000 soms – around 23 dollars.
Ipoteka-Bank, the only one currently offering mortages, has no assets to lend against and its prospects for issuing bonds look poor in an unstable financial climate where inflation is high.
One economist commentator concluded, “The rural population is not going to have much confidence in this [housing] programme.”
(NBCentralAsia is an IWPR-funded project to create a multilingual news analysis and comment service for Central Asia, drawing on the expertise of a broad range of political observers across the region. The project ran from August 2006 to September 2007, covering all five regional states. With new funding, the service has resumed, covering Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.)
On August 3, President Islam Karimov issued orders to boost housing construction in order to improve life in the countryside. The programme has been costed at 175 million US dollars.
A company called Qishloq Qurilish Invest has been tasked with producing standard architectural designs for homes and associated infrastructure, as well as doing the building work itself.
NBCentralAsia observers say the rural housing plan comes in the wake of the global financial crisis which has hit the economies of Russia and Kazakstan, where between two and four million Uzbeks – according to various estimates – have been working as labour migrants.
“The crisis in Russia and Kazakstan has forced many Uzbek migrant workers to come home,” said Ravshan Nazarov, an economist in Tashkent. “Most of them formerly lived in rural areas.”
Tashpulat Yoldashev, an Uzbek political analyst based abroad, estimates that between five and seven per cent of the expatriates have returned to Uzbekistan so far.
Another reason for building more housing is that the 27 million population is growing fast, once again especially in rural areas.
NBCentral Asia observers say that despite this pent-up demand, actually selling the new homes could be difficult.
Construction materials are relatively expensive, and this will add to the price at which Kishlok Kurilish Invest will retail its homes. Potential buyers have little income to buy even on credit, mortgage facilities are undeveloped, and the banks are currently short of cash themselves.
Few people in the countryside would be able to afford a 20,000 dollar bank loan, since with a ten-year term it would cost them around 322 dollars a month. This is in a country where the official minimum monthly wage is set at just under 34,000 soms – around 23 dollars.
Ipoteka-Bank, the only one currently offering mortages, has no assets to lend against and its prospects for issuing bonds look poor in an unstable financial climate where inflation is high.
One economist commentator concluded, “The rural population is not going to have much confidence in this [housing] programme.”
(NBCentralAsia is an IWPR-funded project to create a multilingual news analysis and comment service for Central Asia, drawing on the expertise of a broad range of political observers across the region. The project ran from August 2006 to September 2007, covering all five regional states. With new funding, the service has resumed, covering Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.)
