MOSCOW, October 8. / TASS /. The Russian government is closely monitoring the situation on the concessional mortgage lending market and will work to prevent the appearance of the so-called mortgage bubbles, Russian Presidential Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov commented on the statement by Russia's Central Bank on Thursday.

"There is no doubt that the government is monitoring this very closely," Peskov said, answering a question about whether there are any fears in the presidential administration that mortgage benefits could overheat this market.

Peskov is sure that "this is the very case when you need to use the situation so that as many people as possible become homeowners," which is the main task. The second important point, in his opinion, is the maintenance and development of the construction sector, "and the construction sector has one of the strongest cumulative effects on the economy as a whole." "And thirdly, so that the concerns of the mega-regulator are not so pressing," he added.

In the recent issue of the Central Bank's analytical publication "Housing Construction" it is said that the regulator does not see the risks of bubbles in certain regional mortgage markets due to the implementation of the state program of preferential mortgages. The Central Bank states that a significant part of mortgage loans is still issued on standard terms. The capital regions remain the leaders in obtaining preferential mortgages.

According to the Central Bank, the acceleration of the growth of preferential mortgages, including those focused on the development of remote and rural areas of the country, led to a change in the regional structure of the mortgage market in 2020: the share of metropolitan regions (Moscow, Moscow Region, St. Petersburg, Leningrad Region) in the total volume of mortgage issuance by the end of January - July 2020 decreased to 30.4%, and the share of other regions increased to 69.6%. Between January 2019 and June 2020, preferential loans under the family mortgage program were issued in 81 out of the 85 regions.