Secretary for Housing Winnie Ho concluded her visit to Paris, France, yesterday by meeting a representative of a social housing association, a renowned urban planner and government officials there.

In the morning, Ms Ho met a representative of CDC Habitat, a social housing association in France, to learn more about the mode of operation, development strategies, and challenges of social housing there. She also devoted time to highlight Hong Kong's situation and the various housing initiatives being implemented by the Housing Bureau.

Ms Ho then visited an integrated residential and commercial community comprising social housing, which was transformed from the Olympic Athletes' Village, to learn about sustainable urban development.

While meeting a renowned urban planner, IAE Paris Sorbonne Business School Associate Professor Carlos Moreno, Ms Ho shared her vision and thoughts on sustainable urban planning and design.

Prof Moreno put forward the urban planning concept of the "15-minute city", which aims to enable residents in a community to meet their daily needs for food, clothing, housing and transport within a 15-minute walking or cycling distance and enhance environmental sustainability.

Ms Ho pointed out that this coincides with the planning concept of the Housing Authority’s new public housing estates and cited Queen's Hill Estate as an example, demonstrating the planning of a resident-oriented, self-sufficient community that embraces cultural heritage and blends with nature to create a sustainable community. Prof Moreno expressed his wish to have the opportunity to visit Hong Kong in the future.

In the evening, Ms Ho met Advisor to the Mayor on housing, urban planning, architecture, land development Renaud Paque, and Director of Housing & Habitat Doan Lebel to exchange views on public housing policies and experiences on sustainable urbanisation and urban planning concepts.

Concluding the trip, Ms Ho stated that this visit tied in with the Housing Bureau's Housing•I&T initiative this year, introducing the latest developments of advanced technology companies from Hong Kong and the Mainland in the areas of construction technologies, public housing, green building, etc, as well as demonstrating to the world the application of technologies such as Modular Integrated Construction and construction robots that help enhance construction efficiency and safety.

The housing chief emphasised that the Government will actively make reference to overseas experiences on decarbonisation and energy-saving technologies, and fully capitalise on Hong Kong's unique advantages, reinforce connectivity, and play the role as a “super connector” and a “super value-adder”.

“I expect that the two cities will maintain liaison and strengthen exchanges in areas such as innovative building technologies, public housing construction, green buildings, well-being communities, and enhancing the housing ladder to give new impetus to public housing construction,” Ms Ho added.