On March 12, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev chaired a government meeting on the construction of housing and Yangi (New) Uzbekistan residential project in 2024, the presidential press service said.

To expand the population's access to mortgages, a new lending system based on market principles was introduced four years ago, he president said at the meeting. Over the past period, 100 trillion soums were contributed from all sources, which is four times more than in 2016-2019 to this end.

This led to 6,000 apartment buildings being built in the provinces and 250 thousand families received new housing. 45 thousand low-income families were provided with subsidies amounting to 2.4 trillion soums for down payments and interest payments.

Last year, 85 thousand housing units were built across the country, which is 1.5 times more than in 2022. Mortgage loans worth 17 trillion soums have been provided to individuals. As part of the program, it is planned to build 100 thousand housing units by 2024.

“The time has come for [mayors and developers] to begin to actively engage in issues of reducing construction costs and improving the quality of housing. Which minister or mayor has studied the reasons for rising housing prices and is thinking about preventing it? Minister of Construction Botir Zakirov, together with provincial governors, must develop and ensure implementation of specific measures to reduce construction costs within two weeks,” said the head of state.

The president noted that in order to prevent prices from rising in the housing market, it is necessary to increase the volume of supply. For this purpose, additional land plots will be put up for auction for the construction of apartment buildings.

Provincial governors were instructed to identify an additional 20 hectares of non-agricultural land within two weeks and put it up for auction within two months. Acting Tashkent city mayor Shavkat Umurzakov should put 60 hectares of land in the capital up for sale.

Umurzakov said that the Tashkent mayor’s office was instructed to complete the construction of housing for 20 thousand apartments in 2024, of which 20-30% should be “cheap” apartments.

At the end of January, the president said that the price of a new apartment in Tashkent reached 25 million soums per 1 sqm. He instructed to create a Mortgage Support Fund and regulate the process of shared participation of citizens in housing construction.

Earlier, the Central Bank in its review reported that the number of real estate purchase and sale transactions in Uzbekistan in 2023 increased by 4.4%. High demand, according to the regulator, is facilitated by the demand for mortgages. New buildings increased in price by 26.9%, housing on the secondary market - by 23%. Rental prices stabilized, decreasing by 1%.