KUALA LUMPUR: National housing issues were shared with external parties only with the intention of coming up with more comprehensive and practical policies and actions for the country, said local government development minister Nga Kor Ming.

He said that his ministry has always been open to exchange sessions not only with Singapore’s Housing Development (HDB), but also plans to gain knowledge from Turkey involving aspects of wakaf (endowment) land development.

“Sessions like these give KPKT (the Malay acronym for his ministry) space to study and examine new perspectives in addition to learning best practices about the housing sector, especially social housing.

“The government adopts a humble approach in this matter as long as it benefits the people and the country, so what’s wrong with us learning from neighboring countries, not only Singapore but Indonesia and Thailand,” he said during the Ministers’ Question Time in the Dewan Rakyat today.

He was replying to a question from Shaharizukirnain Abd Kadir’s (PN-Setiu) about the rationale of bringing in Singaporean housing experts to this country when it already has local urban planning experts who can be utilized for the purpose.

Nga said HDB has received various awards and recognition at the international level related to the housing sector such as the Special Recognition Award by the International Jury in Germany in 2016 for successfully developing a stratified development model and the Landscape Award from the International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA) Africa, Asia Pacific & Middle East (AAPME) Awards (2022).

He said among the suggested topics for the sharing sessions with HDB included policies, implementation direction, management, development planning, building maintenance and financing for social housing.

According to him, good examples such as the provision of public housing with five-star facilities at a budget price are among the models that will be studied.

“We learn to include good (housing) features from Singapore that have commercial aspects so that our public housing has elements of livability, connectivity and sustainability.

“It is good (for us to learn), public housing in our country lacks quality, greenery and community sustainability, but we have good examples in this country such as Perumahan Penjawat Awam Desa Park City,” he said.