13 August 2013: UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon appointed Haoliang Xu as Assistant Administrator, Director of the Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific, and Assistant Secretary-General at the UN Development Programme (UNDP). Xu succeeds Ajay Chhibber in the post.

Since 2010, Xu has served as Deputy Regional Director of the Regional Bureau for Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). He has held several leadership positions with UNDP, including as the: Resident Representative in Kazakhstan, where he advocated for including the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in the national policy framework; Pakistan Country Director; Senior Deputy Resident Representative, Timor-Leste; and Deputy Resident Representative, Iran. [UN Press Release]