The national program Year of Family, approved by the head of state on February 27,2012, pays special attention to financial and moral support for young families, creating incentives and opportunities, providing them with modern housing. These tasks impose specific responsibilities to the banking system as well.

In 2012-2013, commercial banks are planned to fund construc¬tion of one hundred 48-apartment houses for young families. Families will be provided with 15-year mortgage loans at an inter¬est rate no higher than the refinancing rate of the Central Bank.

This was discussed at a press conference on the activities of the national banking system for the implementation of the na¬tional program in 2012.

This year, the banks are tasked with providing support to young families, including in addressing the housing issues, said Shuhrat Haydarov, deputy chairman of the Central Bank. Equal importance will be given to support of business projects and busi¬ness start-ups.

It was noted at event that in 2012-2013 commercial banks will fund building of modern housing for young families. In addition, each commercial bank has opened as consumer credit lines for young families. Thus, each young family can receive loans of up to 200 times the minimum wage for three years for the purchase of consumer durable goods.

In accordance with the national program, Uzbekistan plans to allocate 4.5 trillion soums (Exchange rate of CB 1USD-1832,19 soums) from all sources of funding, said Aktam Sayfullaev, director of small business development and entrepreneurship department at the Central Bank of the Republic of Uzbekistan. Over 843 billion soums of them are micro-loans. At the same time, banks will allocate 28.3 billion soums of soft loans for financing the business plans of college graduates, and more than 68 billion soums of soft micro-loans for financing business start-ups of young families. Loans exceeding 40 billion soums, to be allocated through the Special Fund of Soft Lending will be used to finance high-tech and innovation projects of small businesses, micro-firms, small businesses and farms located in remote areas and cities with ex¬cess workforce. (Source: Uzbekistan Today Newspaper)