The Ministry of Construction has submitted to the government a list of sweeteners, including tax breaks it wants to offer property developers to invest in low-income housing. The proposal it sent on January 15 envisages repealing land use/lease charges for developers investing in public housing and allowing them to build 50 percent more on a square meter of land. Deputy Minister of Construction Nguyen Tran Nam admitted that public housing investors have to go through an administrative process of 33 steps involving land, national security, construction, fire prevention, and others. He said his ministry has submitted a proposal to simplify the process and expects the government to approve it in the first quarter of this year. Le Hoang Chau, chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Real Estate Association, said the Housing Laws stipulate that social housing blocks in Hanoi and HCMC must not be more than five or six floors high and that each unit must be 30 to 60 square meters. He added that his association has asked the Ministry of Construction to modify them, pointing out it is wasteful to restrict the number of floors since land prices are high in the two cities.