Govt reverses Urbanco branding to HDC
HDC's brand name was changed to Urbanco on April 1, 2023, the company's 22nd anniversary.
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By
Ahmed Mizyal
Less than a year after the previous government introduced Urbanco as a brand name of the Housing Development Corporation (HDC), the new government has decided to turn away from Urbanco and back to its legal name of HDC again.
HDC's brand name was changed to Urbanco on April 1, 2023, the company's 22nd anniversary.
At the time, HDC said in a statement that it decided to change the company's brand to Urbanco to enhance the services it is providing to the people and shape its work as the largest urban development company in Maldives.
Under the Urbanco brand:
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The company's services will be expanded
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The essence of the brand is that Urbanco is the partner that will make the dreams of the people come true
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The company's new mobile application, the Urbanco app, has also been launched
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The application will allow you to easily access all the services currently offered by the company in one place
HDC launched the Urbanco brand, changed the uniforms of the employees, the company's headquarters and even the design of their vehicles.
However, the company has decided to replace the branding of Urbanco with the old name of HDC:
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The HDC name will be officially used from Thursday
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The aim is to revert everything back to HDC within the next month
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Urbanco will then be used as the name for certain works under the HDC
The company has not yet commented on the matter.
President Mohamed Muizzu has recently hinted that HDC will be used instead of Urbanco, as he referred to the company by its old name whenever he had to make mention of it in his speeches..
Earlier this month, the president said at a campaign rally for PNC mayoral candidate Aishath Azima Shukuoor that the HDC had launched the Urbanco branding in the previous government without taking any legal steps to that effect.
"Although the name has been changed superficially on the surface, nothing legal has been done to call it Urbanco. Legally, the company is still called HDC. No changes have been made when the last government changed the name," he said.
"When the name was changed, it was probably a branding effort to give someone some money and work. Nothing legal was done."
HDC was first run as the Hulhumale Development Unit in the President's Office. With the dredging of the first phase of Hulhumale and the construction of the first flats and buildings there, a separate company was formed in 2001 under the name of Hulhumale Development Corporation.
The name was changed to Housing Development Corporation in 2008 by the then MDP government.
A new brand called Urbanco was created with the removal of housing provision from HDC's main responsibility. The main part of the housing projects implemented by the previous government was carried out by the newly created Fahi Dhiriulhun Corporation (FDC).
