Development secretary Bernadette Linn said reviewing construction standards and centralising procurement of materials are among concrete measures that the government will take to lower costs.

Her bureau had conducted research last year on why construction costs are high by comparing projects here with those in other major cities around the world.

Speaking on RTHK's Overview Policy programme on Wednesday, Linn said it's been quite some time since officials had taken a look at local construction standards, such as those on design and use of materials.

"In the past, our standards tended to be closer to those in the UK or the European Union. But construction industries in many places in the world now have their own development," she said.

"We can take reference from more places, including the mainland of course, and the advantage of this is that we can then turn them into our own standards and possibly open up more markets and sources [of materials] for ourselves."

Linn stressed that suppressing local wages is not a way to lower costs, describing it as a hot potato social issue.

But she added that by this year, officials will start on the central procurement of certain construction materials, as well as cutting red tape for project approvals.

"The government uses a similar bunch of construction materials for a project, or a series of projects, such as steel. So we can centralise the procurement and buy in bulk at cheaper prices," Linn said.

"As for streamlining the project approval process, we don't give empty promises, we'll look to come up with concrete measures to streamline the administrative process in the coming months."

She said the time-saving move for administrative procedures comes after legal changes in 2023 to compress the statutory time needed for project approvals.