250 delegates attend the NEC Asia Pacific Conference 2022

The NEC Asia Pacific Conference 2022 proved a fantastic event to draw together the NEC community, with attendees including clients, contractors, consultants, project managers and suppliers, from across the built environment.

Morning session

The morning session commenced with an opening address from Ricky Lau, NEC Asia Pacific Users’ Group Chair and Permanent Secretary for Development (Works), The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, who discussed the plan for infrastructure development in Hong Kong and meeting the challenges in climate change and long-term sustainability. This was followed by a pre-recorded presentation from Peter Higgins, Chair, NEC Contract Board and John Welch, Chair, NEC Users’ Group, who discussed how NEC are embedded in UK government CCS construction framework procurements, key focus areas and what to expect from NEC for 2023 and beyond.

The morning sessions continued with a presentation on using NEC to drive best practice in project delivery by Michael Fong, Director of Civil Engineering and Development, The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, followed by the opportunity for audience questions to our panel of speakers.

The session after the refreshment break focused on key case studies demonstrating the use of NEC on three unique projects in different sectors. The presentation by Richard Chan and Andrew Fung, Electrical and Mechanical Services Department (EMSD), Government of the Hong Kong SAR (HKSAR) looked at the use of the NEC4 Design Build and Operate Contract (DBO). This was followed by a focus on the New Airport Authority Office Tower which considered the implementation of NEC and how success was measured delivered by Ricky Leung, Airport Authority and Wes Jones, Dragages Hong Kong. A further presentation by Carl Devlin, Capital Works Director, MTR, exhibited the use of NEC on new railway projects.

Afternoon session

Following lunch and the opportunity to network with fellow peers, delegates had the option to choose from three workshops. Workshop 1 focused on NEC’s clause X29 which was released this year. Rob Gerrard, Secretary, NEC Users’ Group led the discussions on how to use X29 and how to transform attitudes to climate change. Workshop 2 considered a hypothetical adjudication scenario with the use of Security of Payment Provisions with speakers analysing the scenario from various perspectives. Speakers for this workshop were Kevin Lai, Henderson Land; Albert Yeu, AECOM; Mike Ellis, Insite Solutions; Stanley Lo, Construction Practice of Deacons and Raymond Koon Shan Au, MTR. Workshop 3 was led by CK Ng, CEO, dRoW, who discussed digitalisation in project management and methods to organise and digitise NEC communications and project information.

The final panel session bought together industry and government speakers to discuss what contracting and construction will look like in the future and the vital role that digitalisation will play in the meeting the key challenges for the region, including achieving carbon neutrality, sustainability, and city resilience. With breaks to network and build relationships throughout the day, delegates had a fantastic opportunity to come together for the first time since 2019 and share their perspectives on using NEC Contracts and best practices in procurement.

NEC would like to thank all speakers, sponsors, supporters and attendees for making this year’s conference a success. Available recordings will be uploaded to the NEC app in due course and slides from the presentations will be made available. Click here to sign up for the app.

Take a look at the conference highlights: