Amid social and economic conditions changing fast with the times, an international forum took place as an opportunity to explore the future direction of housing and urban finance.
Korea Housing & Urban Guarantee Corp. (HUG) organized the 9th International Forum on Housing & Urban Finance at Conrad Seoul Hotel in Yeouido, Seoul, on Dec. 7.
The forum, hosted by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT), was held under the theme “The Evolving Role of Housing and Urban Finance in a Time of Change.”
Experts from foreign diplomatic missions in Korea, financial institutions, academic associations and research institutes participated in the forum, designed to look into global financial market variables amid rapidly changing socioeconomic conditions, housing and urban environment changes and how to cope with them. It was streamed live on the YouTube channel HUG TV.
In his opening speech, MOLIT 1st Vice Minister Lee Won-jae said, “The social and economic environment is undergoing fast changes in a time of changes in the post-COVID pandemic, and I’m pleased to have an opportunity to explore the future new direction of housing and urban finance amid the changes.”
Vice Minister Lee expressed hope the forum would be a meaningful time to evolve housing and urban finance through discussion of examples of countries and experts’ views.
In his commemorative speech, HUG Acting President Lee Byung-hoon said, “Of late, the Korean housing market should cope with global macro economic variables and set strategic direction of new housing and urban policies amid demographic structure changes.”
Acting President Lee said HUG would redouble efforts discussed during the forum, serve as a foundation to stabilize housing and promote housing welfare in a time of changes.
The first session took place under the theme “Housing and Urban Policies in Response to Socioeconomic Changes.”
Romina Boarini, director of OECD WISE Center, spoke of the topic “Changing Housing and Urban Environment since the Pandemic and Its Implications.”
Boarini said housing and urban environments are important determinators of people’s well-being, but poor housing conditions put people’s well-being at greater risk during the pandemic.
She said the pandemic also changed preferences that are likely to influence housing demand and urban environment in the long term, and more recently, the pandemic, inflation and changers in the energy market are all compounding the complexities of the housing sector.
It is thus important to recognize that most policy interventions may have effects that cut across multiple dimensions, and it is recommended that a well-being approach to housing and urban policies is applied with 4 Rs of Refocus, Redesign, Realign and Reconnect, according to Boarini.
Associate Prof. Min Seong-hun of Sunwon University Urban Planning and Real Estate Department gave a presentation on the topic “The Misalignment between the Strategic Asset Allocations and the ESG Investment Targets of Institutional Investors.”
He touched on the necessity to develop diverse ESG indices to support urban development and standardized ESG classifications.
Following the presentations, four Korean and international experts, including Prof. Kim Kyung-hwan of Sogang University, who chaired the session, suggested diverse views on the direction of housing and urban policies to cope with the changing environment.
The second session was held under the theme “The Role of Housing Finance in Response to Demographic Changes.”
Experts discussed the direction of policies to demographic age changes of housing owners and imbalance among generations and the roles of housing and urban finance designed to ease asset gaps among generations.
Prof. Dowell Myers of University of Southern California spoke of the topic “Population Age Waves and Generational Imbalance in Homeownership.” Prof. Myers proposed steps to support the easing of an asset gap among generations.
Assistant Prof. Cheng Keat Tang of Nanyang Technology University in Singapore gave a lecture on the topic “The Role of Housing Finance to Narrow the Generational Wealth Gap.”
The professor introduced housing finance policies designed to effectively support youth’s housing ownership, citing examples in Singapore, Korea and UK.
_제9회 국제주택도시금융포럼.jpg)
