This was stated by His Royal Highness Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, who also called upon the Housing Ministry to accelerate the implementation of housing projects, stressing that land scarcity should not impede or delay their execution.
HRH Premier requested the Ministry to come up with new mechanisms to deal with the problem of land scarcity by adopting new options, including land purchase, and urged it to renovate old neighbourhoods and re-design them entirely so as to host housing projects, stressing that their heritage character and touristic value should be maintained.
HRH Premier also instructed the Ministry to start implementing the housing projects of East Hidd, the Southern Governorate, East Sitra and North Sitra ones, included in the government’s strategic projects aiming to build about 30,000 housing units, calling upon it to activate partnership with the private sector to build 4,000 housing units.
This came as HRH Premier received at his court today the Housing Minister Bassim bin Yaqoob Al Hamar who briefed him on the progress of the implementation of the government’s housing strategy.
During the meeting, HRH Premier stressed that housing is a top priority to both the citizens and the government, pledging that the government will set up more housing projects, reduce the waiting lists and increase the number of beneficiaries so as to meet the growing demand for housing services.
“Bahrain is developing rapidly and we have to meet the requirements of that speedy growth,” HRH Prince Khalifa said, instructing the Housing Ministry to implement the government’s housing strategy (2012 – 2017) aiming to build a total of 43,000 units.
HRH Premier also asserted that the government has done its utmost in order to address the housing issue out of its strong belief in the need to meet the citizens’ aspirations to have decent housing, adding that the government’s strategy will provide housing services for Bahraini citizens across the kingdom.