AGS (HK)

I am very fortunate to have inherited an Association in such a sound position and during what promises to be a very interesting period in Hong Kong’s infrastructure development. The last five years have been difficult for many and it is a reflection of the spirit of the Hong Kong community that so many members are still with us despite the attractions of the booming sectors of Australia, China and the Middle East.

The government has commitment to infrastructure expenditure over the next 10 years. This is re-assuring however, we now have the challenge of resourcing the projects and ensuring that these projects are brought to the public with a high degree of skill and professionalism.

Our ongoing commitment over these next two years is to encourage good practice amongst our members and in particular to motivate and mentor new entrants into the industry. The Association has set up many initiatives over the past few years to achieve this.

We continue to support the Universities by providing scholarships to those students showing particular industry and interest in the disciplines of engineering geology, geotechnics and environmental science. The awards are always gratefully received.

We will continue to organize seminars and ground forums and encourage continued professional development. The topics aim to be of particular relevance to current and near future issues facing the industry. Rather than focus on training alone our aim is to stimulate and lead discussion so that the experience of our members, both good and bad, is disseminated as widely as possible. We will also continue to provide valuable feedback to government.

The committee members have spent many hours developing our Ground Investigation Guidelines and these represent a useful resource for all members involved in planning and carrying out ground investigations in HK. Over the next two years these will be expanded to include Construction Information Guidelines which will focus on aspects of construction supervision of geotechnical works.

During the coming year we are also hoping to resurrect the Hong Kong borehole database under the custodianship of the AGS and delivered to our members as part of the membership package. This will be a hugely valuable resource for the geotechnical community and ensure that valuable data is available to industry and academia to stimulate research and save valuable time and money during preliminary engineering studies.

We are committed to spending members money on our members and we will be running several topical one day seminars this year. A seminar on aspects of natural terrain landslide assessment will be held in January and a seminar on aspects of Tunnel Design and Construction is targeted for June. We are also keen to help bring our members together by promoting trips to interesting geotechnical projects in the region. These are intended to be social as well as training trips and will also involve cultural visits and tours.

On behalf of the committee we look forward to meeting you during what promises to be a very interesting year for our members.