Estate investments [Archives:2007/1078/Opinion]

By: Awatef Al-Sharjabi
The housing projects and the five-year construction plan within the open investment environment are some of the giant projects, which people pin hope in, particularly those dreaming of living stably in their own houses. The curious thing in this subject is that most of the housing project societies help achieve minor dreams and cope with giant dreams. This makes the ordinary citizen hesitant, asking about the real time frame and the nature of construction plan that will help families have stable residencies.

The ordinary citizen knows nothing about the fact, and at this point, the vision gets blurred. But, this remains a dream and is awaited by every individual in order to embody before him/her a tangible objective. The projects of housing societies for government employees have increased, multiplied, and drew peoples' attention to think about all the small and large projects.

This encourages government employees and others to make adventures and own houses instead of taking apartments on lease. They don't care about the time frame before them to achieve their dreams, be they small or large. In the same context, it has become very difficult for citizens to buy plots of land, specifically on the part of those having low incomes. Recently, there has been a great tendency toward land trade, which turned to be one of the useful businesses, particularly after the Central Bank of Yemen marginalized the treasury bills. This policy led to freezing capitals and increasing interests.

Consequently, the capitals freeze and the investment movement slows down, but amid trade and investment developments, as well as the spread of trade ideas and plans, the process of freezing capitals in the Central Bank of Yemen remains confined within local monetary frame. This process, which is carried out to meet the state's heavy spending or the monetary demands, remains a useless idea posed to the danger of numerous changes, coupled with Yemen's entry into effective trade movements.

The process of purchasing, freezing lands, or exercising land trade has become another trade option preferred by many people, particularly as the supply and demand of estates has become a profitable business coping with price hikes at different levels. Government employees accept that certain amounts be deducted from their monthly salaries in order to take part in several government and private housing societies, which enable them own small apartments or plots of lands, even after a long period of time.

With such housing movement and the rising supply and demand for estates and lands, capitals turn to be invested though they seem to be frozen, on the one hand, and citizens find it easy for achieving their dreams to own houses via these societies, on the other.

Source: Al-Thawra State-run Daily
——
[archive-e:1078-v:15-y:2007-d:2007-08-20-p:opinion]