Surveyors Laud New Construction Costing Standards

Until now the global construction industry has lacked a common language and framework for classifying and reporting construction costs.

But the International Construction Measurement Standards (ICMS), launched in Vancouver on July 25, will enhance transparency, lure more capital investment, and improve investor confidence, according to Thomas Ho Kwok-kwan, president of the Hong Kong Institute of Surveyors (HKIS).

More than 45 professional organisations worldwide, including from Hong Kong, worked on the new standards for a more consistent method for presenting construction costs.

“In the past, construction companies focused on investing in their own regions. But now companies will also be able to do more cross-border projects. It is vital to make sure costs can be assessed in a transparent way,” Ho was reported as saying in the South China Morning Post.

Tang Ki-cheung, a member of the ICMS standards setting committee and chairman of its sub-group on building works, was one of the co-authors of the ICMS.

“You would be surprised to see how standards can differ between regions of the world,” he explains. “‘Superstructure’ can mean very different things in different regions. The same applies to ‘fittings and equipment’, ‘gross floor areas’, ‘soft costs’.”

The lack of a uniform approach before had led to confusion, making it difficult for an apple-to-apple comparison, even for ordinary property buyers, due to differences in calculating gross floor areas, for example.

Cheung Tat-tong, chairman of the International Cost Engineering Council and former president of the HKIS, added that Hong Kong’s surveyors understand the standards used in other countries better because of its active participation in ICMS’s standards setting. Going forward, he said his Institute will promote the new standards to the Development Bureau, surveying firms and contractors. — Construction+ Online