The Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning and the Housing Bank participated in the dialogue and discussion sessions held on the sidelines of the "Second Gulf Housing Conference", which is being held in the sisterly State of Kuwait. Representatives of the Ministry and the Housing Bank reviewed the experience of the Kingdom of Bahrain in enhancing cooperation with the private sector to develop housing services, in addition to plans and mechanisms for benefiting from smart applications in developing housing services and real estate development.
In the discussion session, entitled "Opportunities and Challenges of Investing in the Real Estate Sector," Mr. Ahmed Kamel Al Sharaf, Director of the Developer Affairs Relations Department at the Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning, reviewed the Ministry's efforts to enhance cooperation with the private sector to provide social housing for citizens, increase the pace of implementing housing projects in partnership with the private sector, and contribute to diversifying and increasing the real estate stock in the Kingdom Pointing out that the Ministry, during the Innovation Conference in the Social Housing Sector, which was held last April, launched 4 new housing programs.
He explained that the new programs that were announced include the "Ambition" program, the "Buying on the Map" program for beneficiaries of the "Government Land Development Rights" program projects, and the "Private Land Development Rights" program, in addition to launching the second version of the "Betty" real estate platform with additional features.
He pointed out that the government land development rights program has been widely accepted by real estate developers since its launch, who have shown increasing interest in participating in its various projects, reflecting the significant role played by the private sector in providing social housing services to citizens, in addition to citizens' interest in the units offered within this project.
Al Sharaf pointed out that the Ministry is working to expand its partnership with the private sector to accelerate the provision of housing products and increase the stock of social housing projects. To achieve this goal, it launched the "Private Land Development Rights" program, which aims to support real estate companies in the Kingdom to increase real estate projects at prices that suit the value of housing financing obtained by citizens.
In a related context, Mr. Khaled Al Khaja, Senior Director of Marketing and Sales at the Housing Bank, participated in a dialogue session entitled "Digital Technologies and Their Impact on Real Estate Development," where he reviewed the Kingdom of Bahrain's efforts to benefit from modern digital technologies in developing real estate services, noting that the Kingdom of Bahrain continues to adopt innovative solutions to promote social housing projects.
He pointed out that the "Beity" real estate platform displays about 13 thousand properties that comply with housing financing programs, which include residential units, vouchers and apartments distributed across all governorates of the Kingdom of Bahrain. The digital platform also allows flexibility in viewing the details of properties provided by companies using advanced visual display technologies
He explained that the experience of the "Betty" platform has proven its success by measuring the number of users of the "Betty" real estate platform (more than 30 thousand users), whether by citizens or developers, as well as banks and commercial banks, as the platform is a distinctive initiative for the process of providing housing services in an effective and innovative way, which is consistent with the trends of digital transformation of government services.
He pointed to the most important development we are currently moving towards, the application of the smart tracking system, as housing demand proceeds through stages through which citizens, as well as real estate developers, can digitally follow the stages of ownership procedures for social housing projects.
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