S for Housing begins visit to Hangzhou and Beijing (with photos)
28.5.2024

The Secretary for Housing, Ms Winnie Ho, and her delegation began the visit to Hangzhou yesterday (May 27) to meet with Mainland government officials to exchange views in areas such as public housing policies, people-oriented designs, innovative construction technologies, and smart property management. Officials of the Housing Bureau (HB) and the Housing Department (HD) also joined the visit. Ms Ho and the delegation arrived in Hangzhou yesterday evening. They visited a major cultural landmark there, the Hangzhou National Archives of Publications and Culture, to learn about its unique architectural structure and how the application of Building Information Modelling (BIM) facilitated its construction. They were also briefed on a variety of Chinese classics and Chinese cultural relics. Ms Ho today (May 28) met with Chief Economist of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development (MOHURD) Mr Cao Jinbiao, who came all the way from Beijing to Hangzhou. She attended the inaugural Mainland and Hong Kong Housing Forum with officials of the MOHURD and the Department of Housing and Urban-Rural Development of Zhejiang Province afterwards. Ms Ho mentioned that at a meeting with the Minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, Mr Ni Hong, in Beijing last year, both sides discussed meeting and visiting each other as well as different Mainland cities with a view to improving the housing and living standard of citizens. There has been close liaison since then for arranging this visit to Hangzhou for in-depth exchanges and experience sharing among Beijing, Hangzhou and Hong Kong on topics including smart construction, smart property management, community building, and housing policies. Ms Ho said that the current-term Government has been sparing no effort in increasing the supply of public housing to provide accommodation to grassroots who are inadequately housed or cannot afford private rental housing. In addition to traditional public rental housing, the construction work of a number of Government-led Light Public Housing (LPH) projects has already commenced at full speed. Intake for the first batch of about 2 100 units is tentatively scheduled for the first quarter next year, with a target to completing about 30 000 LPH units by 2027-28, so as to improve the living conditions and quality of family life for those currently living in inadequate accommodation at the soonest. On promoting innovative construction technologies, green building and property management, Ms Ho and officials of the HD exchanged views with MOHURD officials on continuous enhancement of applications of technologies like Modular Integrated Construction (MiC) and Multi-trade Integrated Mechanical, Electrical and Plumbing (MiMEP). They also discussed how to adopt more widely various construction robots in public housing projects to further enhance construction efficiency, safety and quality. Ms Ho also shared with relevant government officials the HB's effort in improving the well-being of citizens as well as enhancing the quality of housing supply apart from construction speed, efficiency and quantity. She said that the HD team has been collecting views from its residents, stakeholders and professionals in formulating the "Well-being design" guide for improving the planning and design of new public housing projects. The HD is also working to enhance the sense of well-being among residents through improving open space design of existing housing estates and carrying out minor improvement works. The two parties also exchanged views on property management in Hong Kong and the Mainland, especially on enhancing management efficiency by utilising technologies. Ms Ho shared the HD's effort and experience in continuously enhancing the management efficiency and service quality of nearly 200 public housing estates. Ms Ho will continue the visit to Hangzhou tomorrow (May 29). She will visit various projects to learn about the development of subsidised rental housing, smart property management and liveable housing design there. The delegation will depart for Beijing afterwards to visit the China Railway Construction Corporation Limited and the China State Construction International Holdings Limited. Their respective group companies are participating in the constructions of the Light Public Housing.