Moroccan Hopes For Affordable Housing Tax Breaks

The Moroccan government is hoping to resurrect the country’s affordable housing sector by reinstating tax breaks for private developers.

Construction of affordable homes plunged from 129,000 units in 2008 to 35,000 in 2009 after tax incentives were revoked, according to regional news agency Magharebia.

In August 2009, the housing and town plan minister warned that the country’s social housing, which accounts for 70% of the market, would enter a state of crisis if nothing was done to revert the situation.

“The advantages given [to developers] will allow a return of investment to the construction industry, with all that it entails in terms of opening up new construction sites, job creation and sales of building materials,” the chairman of the National Federation of Housing Developers, Youssef Ben Mansour, said in a press statement on December 21st.

Under measures being debated in Parliament as part of the 2010 Finance Bill, developers would be granted exemptions from income and corporate taxes. They would also receive breaks on registration fees and relief from the cement tax, but would still have to pay value-added tax on other construction materials.