Mr. Martin O'Brien:

We are not very prescriptive as to what should be done as it is not our place. When one looks at the experiences of other countries, one sees a range of options for what can be done. For example, public procurement systems can be aligned in a way that incentivises companies to use more modern methods. One can look at land use regulation more generally to think about how we incentivise a particular scale of activities in areas of high demand. Many aspects of construction productivity are linked with some of the other factors that the deputy governor mentioned, such as infrastructure delivery, etc. The larger sense of infrastructure delivery in areas of high demand will allow a greater scale of projects in which businesses can be involved in delivering. In turn, that will help them to invest themselves in their own capital stock, technology, machinery and equipment. All of these things are interlinked. From a public policy perspective, the first areas to look at probably involve looking at aspects of more effective planning to get scale and eliminate planning delays, to deliver on necessary public infrastructure to allow housing and to incentivise adaptation to modern technology.