$4.85 billion of real estate inventories Inventories at the end of September fell more than 20 percent compared to the first half of the year; the estate market has had positive signs, according to the Ministry of Construction.    In a report to the National Assembly, the Construction Ministry said the estate market in general and the housing market in particular has had positive signs. Confidence in the market is gradually recovering. Many transactions in the segmentation of social housing and small apartments have been successful conducted. Regarding prices, the Ministry of Construction said that compared to the 2008-2010 period, many projects have slashed price by up to 50 percent, equal to that of 2006. The price of most estate projects has been reduced from 10 to 30 percent. As compared with the previous two years, the volume of transactions in the market remains low. However, for the segment of small apartments with reasonable prices, the liquidity is still high and transactions tend to increase. Report of the Ministry of Construction also mentioned specific numbers about the value of real estate inventory in September (VND101,889 billion or over $4.85 billion), a fall of VND4.206 billion (nearly 4 percent) compared to August and VND26,660 billion (more than 20 percent) compared to half a year ago. The numbers of real estate inventories in the two major cities in the country – Hanoi and HCM City - are also decreasing. In Hanoi, real estate inventory is estimated at VND14,487 billion in July, down by VND2,573 billion (15 percent) compared with June. In HCM City, the inventory was VND21,947 billion in September, down by VND4,206 billion (16.1 percent) compared with August. Based on these results, the Ministry of Construction said that the solutions for removing difficulties for the real estate market and the implementation of the national housing development strategy have achieved promising initial results. Regarding the disbursement of the VND30 trillion package for social housing and small commercial housing with low prices, the State Bank has approved loans totaling VND860.5 billion for six businesses, of which nearly VND55 billion was disbursed for two firms. For families and individuals, 619 individual clients have been committed with loans totaling more than VND203 billion, of which 590 clients being disbursed with VND142 billion. US$1 = VND21,000 S. Tung, VietNamNet Bridge