SOUTH African property specialists have sought advice from Hong Kong's public housing experts on how to re-house the millions of people living in squatter camps in their country.
Colin Wright, director of property consultancy JH Issacs, met officials from the Hong Kong Housing Authority recently to learn about their experience of providing affordable mass housing.
JH Issacs is an associate of Hong Kong property consultants Brooke Hillier Parker and the firm is playing a leading role in public housing initiatives in South Africa.
The meeting took on additional urgency because it coincided with the first violent protest by homeless people since the advent of majority rule in South Africa.
The protests erupted in Johannesburg last week following the eviction of a group of homeless people from a vacant building. They had been protesting at the Government's apparent inability to find them another place to live.
More than 10 per cent of South Africa's people were living in temporary squatter huts, a spokesman for JH Issacs said. And since the end of apartheid and the election of Nelson Mandela, the Government had made it a priority to re-house the squatters.