Housing units demand to increase upto 500,000
Staff Report

ISLAMABAD—Owing to increasing demand of house units, there exist tremondous opportunities for investment in real estate and housing sector.
"Demand of houses would reached to 500,000 within next twenty years," Secretary Board of Investment (BoI) Mushtaq Malik said while chairing the first meeting of Advisory Board on Housing and Infrastructure here on Thursday.
He said that housing backlog stood at 4.30 million in 1998 which, according to current projections, stands at 6.19 million, he said adding that 350,000 housing units were established in year 2006 with an investment of Rs. 150 billion plus cost of land for the construction.
Mushtaq Malik said that main aim of the advisory board meeting with in the BoI was to addressed the issues faced by the private sector and put forward the recommendations to the relevant authorities.
He also asked for one-window mechanism in different sectors of the economy to attract foreign investment to develop infrastructure in the country.
Positive suggestions and constructive critics would be able to enhance institutional work performance, he added.
The meeting was also attended by the high officials of government and private housing construction, cement manufacturing organizations who present their suggestion before the meeting.
NHA officials informed the members of the board about the vision 2030 to develop an industrialized prosperous Pakistan through rapid and sustainable growth.
NLC officials informed that NLC has valuable pieces of land across the country for joint investment in public private partnership.
Regarding the cement industry, the board was informed that domestic demand in 2006-07 was 21,034,278 tons which shows 25 percent increase.
Per capita cement consumption was 137 kg while immense potential was there for cement export to earn huge foreign reserve for the country.