Mortgage Credit System should Be Market- Not Subsidy-Based - Vladimir Putin

A system of mortgage credits should be market-, rather than subsidy-based, said Russian leader Vladimir Putin as he opened in the Kremlin on Thursday a meeting of the State Council presidium. Only in this case, believes the Russian president, will it be possible to draw into this system "finances adequate to the scale of the country's current housing problem". Besides, the head of state said, mortgage credit should be easily available. "It should become not just available, but routinely available: functioning not as an exception, but as a norm," Putin said.

Citing expert assessments, the president pointed out that "many families in the country, who have steady incomes, are well able to take a mortgage credit" on condition that people's incomes keep growing all the time.

It is also necessary to form an infrastructure for mortgage credits, the president emphasised. Moreover, he indicated that "it is useful to take into account the experience and the professional point of view" of the agency for mortgage credits.

Putin described mortgage credits as a "tried and tested method of attracting private investments", not from overseas but domestically in the first place.

The president stated with regret that "most of the mortgage mechanisms functioning in the regions are relying on budget financing". According to him, "this undermines the very idea of mortgage and runs counter to its basic aims and principles".

At the same time, Putin acknowledged that "the state has a defining role to play here - it must create institutions required to organise a mortgage credit market and to formulate a clear legal basis for it".