The International Monetary Fund (IMF) classifies the Portuguese Government’s measures to alleviate the impact of interest rates on housing credit as “provisional”, adding that they do not resolve the crisis.
“These are provisional measures, they are not a long-term solution to the housing problem”, said the IMF director for Europe, Alfred Kammer, in an interview with the Lusa in Brussels regarding the Fund’s annual meeting.
After, at the end of September, the Portuguese executive approved a new mechanism to guarantee stability for families, extended the interest rate subsidy and extended the suspension of reimbursement commissions, the head of the IMF pointed out that “it is the supply of housing that it has to increase and that means social housing, […] but housing more generally”.
“This is also reflected in terms of rents and rental prices in which people are simply excluded from the housing market and particularly affects young people and urban people”, added Alfred Kammer, when asked by Lusa about these initiatives.
Regarding the provisional measures adopted, “given the increase in interest rates and the stress on some housing loans, our advice is that these measures should be temporary and should be targeted at families in need”.
“The Government [has to] protect the vulnerable, but at the same time it needs to be very aware of the budgetary cost of these initiatives”, he stressed.
Source: ThePortugalNews