KARACHI: Pakistan Mortgage Refinance Company (PMRC) will provide Rs3.6 billion to House Building Finance Company (HBFC) for the provision of low-cost housing in the country.

The PMRC, which gets cheaper loans from World Bank, signed an agreement with the HBFC at the central bank. The signing ceremony was chaired by the Governor State Bank Tariq Bajwa while high officials of PMRC and HBFC were also present at the occasion.

Under the agreement, PMRC will provide long-term fixed rate funding of up to Rs3.6bn to HBFC for providing home mortgage loans to end consumers.

The Governor State Bank said that housing finance is very limited in Pakistan with a very low GDP-to-mortgage ratio of 0.2-0.3 per cent as compared to regional countries.

Published in Dawn, February 19th, 2019