BEIRUT, Lebanon - Lebanon launched a program Saturday to help low-income citizens buy or build houses with easy loans. Unveiling the program, Prime Minister Rafik Hariri said it would enable people to borrow up to $100,000 to buy a house in the capital Beirut and up to $50,000 for a house elsewhere. Commercial banks would provide the loans at market interest rates, but the government's Public Institute for Housing would pay the interest for the first ten years, Hariri said.

In a second period of ten years, the PIH would collect interest from the clients on easy terms. There are an estimated 75,000 newly-built apartments in and around Beirut which are empty because they are beyond the means of would-be buyers or tenants. Hariri said the PIH was planning to build 10,000 new apartments throughout the country to help alleviate an acute housing shortage whose origins lie in the 1975-1990 civil war.

The government has already reached agreement with local and foreign construction firms to implement the plan, he said. (AP)