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PAQS CHAIRMAN - SR FRANCIS LEUNG'S SPEECH IN PAQS CONGRESS 2017

 

 

 

Mr. Chairman, fellow members, ladies and gentlemen,

It is my great honour to be elected as the Chairman of PAQS and receive this appointment on this very memorable occasion.

First of all, may I thank the CIQS for hosting the PAQS Congress this year, for your hospitality and your excellent organization.   

Let us have a round of applause to show our appreciation of your very great effort.

Being able to represent Hong Kong for the past years, working with so many wonderful friends from so many countries has been my great honour and privilege.  

I am now even more thrilled to have earned your trust to lead our esteemed profession, contributing so significantly to infrastructure formation and social and economic development in the respective countries and in the overall Pacific Region.

The responsibility is now upon me and the incoming Executive Committee, Surveyor Kwan, Professor Chitra (as 1st and 2nd Vice Chair respectively), Sr Grant Warner (Honorary Treaurer) Sr Hanifi and Sr Raymond Kam (Honorary Secretary).   

On the strength of the experience and track record of our great team, I have full confidence that we will continue to earn your support.

With so much already been achieved by the Chairman, Ian, and the councils before him, we are inheriting a good system and all the good work.  

The challenge is, of course, that the bar has been raised, and we need to work even harder to keep up with the good work and the members’ expectations.

PAQS comprises members from 14 countries and economies in the Pacific region, where quantity surveying is at different stages of growth and development.

We are from different cultures, speaking different languages and operating within different economic frameworks and standards.  

However, these differentials have never been perceived as impediments fragmenting or separating our respective practices.   

On the contrary, sharing the common objectives of providing higher quality and more efficient services, we treasure the opportunities for sharing knowledge and experience, exploring business opportunities, and thereby achieving synergy.   

But as we all know, PAQS is only a modestly funded organization.   It has been quite a challenge for the Executive Committee and the administrative staff to co-ordinate the efforts of all, respond to short term needs and targets, and at the same time stay alert to long-term challenges.   

Despite all these, under Ian’s good leadership, we have covered a lot of grounds.  At the PAQS Board Meeting held just last Sunday, we identified and agreed on issues that we should look into and do more collectively to move our profession forward.  

As eager as I am to share our vision with a wider audience, I don’t suppose tonight is the right occasion for me to burden you with too much details.  

But just very quickly, I am obliged to let you know that the new Executive Committee, has already met to deliberate on a few priority issues and the way forward.  

We deliberated on the details about our draft 5-year business plan and how to invite further input from member countries.  

Incorporating your comments, we aim to roll out the business plan very soon.

Certain revisions to the Constitution were considered necessary in response to the substantial increase in membership and the need to better engage our members for meeting further challenges and moving our profession forward.  

Under the chairmanship of Kwan, we are forming a working group to take charge of the updating and revision work.

Chat-groups and video-conferencing have been set up to facilitate quicker and more interactive communication within the Executive Committee, the Board and the various committees.

We will continue our pursuit to promote good practices,  industry standards and professional ethics.

The PAQS has taken active part in the RICS’ compilation and publication of the International Construction Measurement Standard (ICMS,) which was just launched earlier this afternoon.  

We will continue our support to the subsequent promotion, updating and augmentation of the standards to cover life cycle costing and civil engineering.
  
Also, through the BIM committee, we will continue to facilitate the adoption of common platforms and standard for Building Information Modelling implementation.

As I said, I cannot afford to be too detailed.  So, the above is just a very quick outline of some major work that we are working on and are assigning priority.    

At a strategical level, a draft 5-year business plan has been completed and issued to member countries for comment.  

I would urge that members study the draft carefully, and let us have your input, so that an agreed version of the Business Plan, co-owned by all, will be issued.

I would like to conclude by congratulating CIQS and all members again for a very informative and thought provoking Congress.  

I am sure that, from the Congress, we all will find some new knowledge and insight that we can bring back to our own work in our countries, to build on and improve our practices.

On that note, I look forward to the pleasure of serving all members.  

See you all in Sydney in 2018!

Thank you very much.

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