The Government of Guyana’s initiative to reduce the cost of borrowing has resulted in a 41.25% increase in lending from the local banking sector for home ownership and home construction. This was revealed by President Irfaan Ali during his delivery of the feature address at the opening ceremony of the International Building Exposition 2023, on Thursday night.
During his speech he disclosed that, compared to 2015 to 2019, for the period 2020 to 2023, there has been noticeable growth with the lending from various banks to citizens who wish to become homeowners.
The Head of State noted that his administration had made a promise to make home ownership affordable for all. As such, he underscored that the increase in the lending from the bank was made possible by the various strategies by the government to ensure that it reduces the cost of home ownership, by bringing down the cost of borrowing.
“So over the years we have been able to increase the incentives to the banking sector to support lending to the housing sector, so for example interest rate in 202o when we come in for low-income housing was about 6%, today because of incentives and policies we have implemented that interest rate is between 3 and 3.75%,” President Ali said.
Moreover, the president disclosed that in the last three years, the Government has spent $56 Billion on the housing sector, creating opportunities for 25,000 new house lots and home owners.
“This is a result of the work that we have embarked on if you look at the benefit from the mortgage interest relief program in (APNU+AFC) five years the total benefit to the population was less than $1B compared to the last three years alone is more than $2.4 B dollars which went back as mortgage interest relief to the people of Guyana,” President Ali highlighted.
The President also disclosed that an investment of $170 Billion will be needed to address the housing backlog and an additional $400 Billion to open new lands, build highways in order to get access to the lands.
