Armenia develops program to assist Karabakh refugees in acquiring housing

YEREVAN, February 28. /ARKA/. The Government of Armenia will assist those refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh who have decided to obtain Armenian citizenship and build or buy a house in the country, Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Khachatryan told the Public Television.

He said after 10 years of living in that house or apartment, the ownership will be transferred to the family. He also reminded that at present the government provides assistance in the amount of 16 million drams to those families who have decided to build or buy housing in the border regions. He added that the government plans to expand the list of areas covered by this program.

"The size of the basic assistance to each family member will be 3 million drams. If a family consists of five people, it can apply to the bank with a government-provided certificate for 15 million drams to finance or co-finance the acquisition of the housing, and the government will pay the size of the loan to the bank during the next 10 years," he explained.

The Deputy Prime Minister also said that housing, the cost of which is in the range of 15-18 million drams, is mostly available beyond the capital Yerevan.

Our observations show that there are only 4 towns s where the cost of 1 square meter of housing exceeds 200 thousand - Abovyan, Dilijan, Tsaghkadzor and Echmiadzin. In other settlements 1 square meter costs less than 200,000 drams, which means that our assistance will be enough to buy a house or apartment in such settlements," he said.

"Since we are talking about more than 25,000 families or, according to our rough estimates, 110-120,000 people, at the rate of 3 million drams, on average, per person, the total volume of assistance will amount to 400 billion drams," he said. -0-