It is our honour to have the privilege to draw on various resources, both local and overseas, to organize a regional conference on Age-friendly Cities from an Asian Pacific perspective for the first time here in Hong Kong.  The promotion of the Age-friendly Cities initiative originates from the World Health Organization’s Age-friendly Environments Programme which addresses the environmental and social factors that contribute to active and healthy ageing in societies.

This Conference aims at contributing to the promotion and further development of age-friendly cities in different socio-economic contexts globally through capitalizing on the Asian perspectives and experiences in this regard. The development of age-friendly cities necessitates multi-disciplinary collaboration across multiple academic and professional disciplines that jointly contributes to the procreation and maintenance of necessary physical and social infrastructures which are friendly to the senior citizens.  This conference will definitely offer a valuable opportunity for all related disciplines around the world to meet in Hong Kong for a fruitful discussion and exploration on cooperation and participation across different sectors in advocating an age-friendly environment. 

As Hong Kong is a cosmopolitan city where ‘East meets West’, its oriental cultures exhibit specific normative orientations towards respecting older people in the family and society. This could be a contributive social factor for developing age-friendly cities.  We hope you to join me here in Hong Kong to deliberate and explore with us feasible ways to build up a city where the senior citizens’ needs and aspirations are well taken care of and duly respected.