Property tycoon Henry Cheng Kar-shun - the only business representative on a new poverty task force - says developers could help solve housing problems by converting disused factory buildings into interim homes for people on the long waiting list for public housing.
This would enable developers to earn income from buildings that now lie idle while helping the government meet housing needs, he said.
Cheng, appointed by incoming chief executive Leung Chun-ying to help revive the scrapped Commission on Poverty, told the South China Morning Post: 'I have always wanted to narrow the wealth gap and to take a share of social responsibility.
'To help people lead a comfortable, stable life will bring about social harmony.'
Cheng - a late-joining supporter of Leung who took over from his father Cheng Yu-tung as chairman of New World Development Company earlier this year - was named last week as a member of the Preparatory Task Force on the Commission on Poverty, chaired by Leung.
He denied that helping the poor was an abrupt change for him, saying that he had made donations and sponsored charity projects over the years but had kept a low profile while doing so.
A visit to subdivided flats and cage homes in Sham Shui Po a few months ago had deepened his determination to take action, he said. He recalled four people crammed into a 50 sq ft flat. 'I saw there was such a huge gap in the living conditions of different people,' he said.