Secretary for Housing Winnie Ho attended the Asia-Pacific Network for Housing Research (APNHR) 2025 Conference at Tsinghua University and visited the Qingtangwan public rental housing project in Beijing today.

The APNHR is an international organisation focusing on housing issues in the Asia-Pacific region. The conference was held at Tsinghua University this year with the theme "Towards Resilience and Inclusivity: Adapting to Multifaceted Challenges in the Asia-Pacific Region".

The conference convened experts and scholars in the fields of architecture, urban planning, sociology, environmental studies, and others from the Asia-Pacific region to have in-depth exchanges on the housing development and challenges in the region, and to jointly explore ways to promote innovative housing construction and development directions.

At the conference’s roundtable session this morning, Ms Ho shared the opportunities and challenges in housing development faced by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government Housing Bureau (HB) and the Hong Kong Housing Authority (HKHA).

She said that the current-term Hong Kong SAR Government has actively addressed Hong Kong's housing problems since taking office, overcoming livelihood issues and addressing people's concerns by identifying sites and enhancing the quantity, speed, efficiency and quality of public housing construction.

The HB is working full steam ahead on implementing groundbreaking innovative policy initiatives, such as Light Public Housing (LPH) and Basic Housing Units, to tackle the long-standing, big and difficult issue that has plagued Hong Kong for many years and to provide the grassroots with options to improve their living environment and quality of life.

Ms Ho highlighted that the HB and the HKHA have been making use of various innovative construction technologies, such as Modular Integrated Construction, construction robots and smart project management platforms, to enhance construction efficiency and build LPH expeditiously, so as to improve the living conditions of those who are inadequately housed as soon as possible.

She also introduced at the conference the "well-being design" guide launched by the HB and the HKHA last year, which serves as a reference for the future design of new public housing and the improvement works of existing public rental housing estates.

Apart from housing construction, the HKHA has also continued to enhance the management efficiency and service quality of its nearly 200 public rental housing estates by actively promoting smart estate management and introducing new technologies to optimise estate management and building maintenance services, to provide a better living environment for its residents.

In the afternoon, Ms Ho visited the Qingtangwan public rental housing project in Beijing. This project is a green residential area that adopted the use of prefabricated components and environmental monitoring platforms. It also implements smart community management through community apps.

Afterwards, Ms Ho met Deputy Director-General of the Bureau of International Cooperation of the State-owned Assets Supervision & Administration Commission of the State Council Xie Hui to exchange views on housing design and planning.

She also shared the adoption of advanced construction technologies from the Mainland in Hong Kong and the outcomes.

Yesterday, Ms Ho visited the Better House Living Tech Lab and was briefed on the practice of combining housing design concepts of quality homes and technologies on the Mainland.

The housing chief will continue her Beijing visit tomorrow before returning to Hong Kong.