Venezuela invests 73 bln USD for basic need for housing

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced Thursday that his government has invested more than 73 billion U.S. dollars in the past four years in building affordable housing, under international cooperation with countries including China.

The government program, called the Great Housing Mission, aims to build 3 million homes by 2019.

In a televised broadcast statement celebrating the program's fourth anniversary, Maduro said 701,250 homes have been built in the first four years since the program was launched in 2011 by late president Hugo Chavez.

"A great human, economic and logistical effort has been made to build over 700,000 homes and I promise we will reach the goal set by Chavez of 3 million new apartments by 2019," said Maduro.

The basic need for housing, or as Maduro called it, "the drama of housing cannot be solved by capitalism, here we are going to solve it with socialism and more socialism."

The Great Housing Mission was created after torrential rains in late 2010 left more than 30,000 families homeless around the country.

International cooperation, particularly from China, Russia, Belarus, Iran, Spain, Colombia and Cuba, has been an important part of the program.

Venezuelan Housing Minister Ricardo Molina told Xinhua in a recent interview that over 14,000 new apartments have been built in cooperation with Chinese companies.

"That figure will increase because the relationship with China will continue to grow over time," he said.

Maduro is also pushing to industrialize Venezuela to reduce its reliance on oil exports, Molina said, adding that this push will increase the import of construction materials and machinery from China. Endi