Donetsk, Dec 5 — DAN. The first apartment building put up under the preferential mortgage program has been commissioned in the city of Mariupol in the Donetsk People’s Republic, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin said on Tuesday.

“A four-storey house with an area of more than 3,200 square meters has been built within a year, ” Khusnullin said. “It comprises 51 apartments; all of them have been sold out at a mortgage rate of 2 percent, which shows the demand for this state support measure.”

With plans to step up housing construction, a regional ministry has created a land pool of 6 million square meters while the Investment Committee has approved 11 projects to be financed from extra-budgetary sources, the official said.

Russian Minister of Construction, Housing and Utilities Irek Faizullin earlier told the Donetsk News Agency that  housing construction had been launched in the DPR as part of the preferential mortgage program.

In December 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin brought forward the initiative to provide mortgage loans at a rate of 2 percent to residents of the four new regions. The first such loan was extended to a Mariupol resident in September. DPR Head Denis Pushilin said that more than 30,000 square meters of housing would be built in the Republic under the mortgage program within two years.*jk