In this introductory chapter, the importance of productivity to the construction industry will be set out as a primary information for better understanding. The originality of this research is also stated in the problem statement as a rationale behind this survey. Finally, the objective of this research will be developed.

1.1 Construction and Productivity
Construction productivity was being concerned to have improvement in the report of the Construction Industry Review Committee (CIRC) [1]

' the construction industry must improve its efficiency and productivity substantially to stay competitive.'

This clearly suggested that construction industry is necessarily to find out the root cause of low productivity.

a) Importance of Construction Productivity
The Asian Productivity Organization [2] has cited that any improvement in construction productivity would make a substantial beneficial to the national economy. Higher production output, lower inflation rate and further productivity growth could be benefited from productivity improvement.

Owning to the economic downturn in Hong Kong, the construction industry should subsequently improve the productivity to stay competitive as mentioned by the Construction Industry Review Committee.

The foreign contractors have been successful in Hong Kong construction, it may soon become a treat to Hong Kong contractors. However, the local contractors are generally do not have incentives to improve productivity, and it would become the main cause if they are likely to be substituted by the foreign contractors.

With a higher productivity, the local contractors are able to reduce the construction cost and therefore benefit from a higher profit. Also, the contractor can even offer a lower bidding price to increase his competitiveness.

b) Construction Productivity Growth Rate
Hong Kong construction industry is facing the problem of low productivity growth rate. As shown in Table 1.1, the growth rate of the productivity has been increased in the year 1994-1996. However, starting from the year 1997, the productivity growth rate started to decrease. Although this decreasing trend was not continued to the year of 1999, the productivity growth rate was still lower than that in 1993-1994, the years when economics bloomed.

Table 1.1 Growth Rate of Productivity (%) in Hong Kong Construction Industry

Source:
GDP and Components: Hong Kong. Census and Statistics Dept., Estimates of Gross Domestic Product 1961-1999 [3] [4] [5].
Workforce Employed: Census and Statistics Department, Hong Kong Annual Digest of Statistics 2001, Hong Kong: Govt. Printer [6]

c) Labour Productivity
Manpower is the main element of construction productivity. Moreover, Fox [7] cited that Hong Kong construction industry is a labour intensive industry as the construction industry employs a high proportion of the total of Hong Kong. It makes the labour productivity more important in Hong Kong.

Unfortunately, the labour productivity in Hong Kong is relatively low as compared with other countries. Fox [8] had done a comparison of Hong Kong productivity with that of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. The research data are showed at table 1.1 below:
Table 1.2 Comparison of Overall Unit Cost/Productivity

Overall Unit Costs/ Productivity

From the table, we can see that the labour cost of Hong Kong is the lowest among all. While the number of people needed to build the same amount of floor space is much higher in Hong Kong. This can simply illustrate that the productivity in Hong Kong is much lower than other foreign countries. Fox continued that Hong Kong production methods require about 66% more workers than in Brisbane, or 40% more than in Sydney.

With workforce being the most crucial factor in Hong Kong productivity and the comparatively low labour productivity, we have to tackle the site productivity problems/inefficient encountered by the construction workforce first as they are the root causes leading to the low productivity. That is the reason why a site level investigation is conducted in this research.

1.2 Problem Statement
The construction industry in Hong Kong is currently suffering from low labour productivity when comparing with other countries. Labour is considered to be a major influential factor since Hong Kong construction industry is a labour intensive industry.
In order to overcome this problem, the current weaknesses must be found out. Unfortunately, in the past ten years, no research conducted was aimed at finding the on site productivity problems. This research is therefore aimed at identifying the root causes of poor labour productivity.

In the light of the survey conducted by Zakeri et al [9], which provided a good foundation and accepted method for investigating the on site productivity problems, this research largely followed the procedures and methods adopted by Zakeri et al.