RIYADH — The Real Estate Development Fund (REDF) has exempted 1,617 dead people from loans worth SR270 million ($73.5 million). Muhammad Al-Abdani, the fund's director general, was quoted by Okaz Arabic newspaper as saying that the exemption had been granted following an order from King Abdullah, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques. Earlier this week, the Real Estate Development Fund also distributed 3,000 different plots of land in Hail province in a bid to alleviate a housing shortage in the area. Hail is the first area in the Kingdom to benefit from a joint initiative between REDF and the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs to match land plots to customers who have been pre-approved for REDF loans. The fund, established in 1974 (1394H), was set up to meet the needs and aspirations of the Kingdom's citizens by helping to raise the quality of life in society through the development of high quality housing. In its first five years, the fund fulfilled its major objective by solving the housing crisis of the time engendered by the Kingdom's extraordinary pace of development.
