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COURTESY CALL: SM Goh calling on Mr Liang at the Jinji Lake Grand Hotel in Suzhou yesterday. -- PHOTO: LIANHE ZAOBAO
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SUZHOU - SINGAPORE may be actively engaging various provinces in China on different projects, but it will never forget Suzhou city, where large-scale collaboration between the two countries took off.
Ties between Singapore and Suzhou, in eastern Jiangsu province, go back 15 years from the time the idea of an industrial park was first seeded, and there will be 'continuity in the good relations', said Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong during talks with the province's top official yesterday.
SM Goh also assured Jiangsu party secretary Liang Baohua that although Singapore will be 'paying quite a lot of attention' to a new, soon-to-be-formalised joint project to build an eco-city elsewhere in China, the Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP) will still feature prominently on its radar.
Singapore and China are days away from unveiling the location of the city which will be developed as a showcase of how economic development can be balanced with environmental protection.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is expected to sign a framework agreement on the new joint key project with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong during his visit to Singapore to attend a regional summit from Nov 18-22.
Mr Goh had first proposed the eco-city project to Premier Wen in April.
After seven months of site assessments and study, the location for the eco-city has been narrowed down to either the northern port city of Tianjin or Tangshan city, said Mr Goh, who is in Suzhou to attend a two-day meeting of the Commission on Growth and Development, an independent commission supported by the World Bank.
The other two sites that were under consideration were Baotou city, in northern Inner Mongolia, and Urumqi, the capital of western Xinjiang autonomous region.
Mr Goh disclosed that in their talks, Mr Wen had told him: 'When you develop the eco-city, don't forget SIP.'
'And of course how can we forget? We have a very good project here, we will continue to pay attention to SIP,' he said, drawing smiles from Mr Liang.
Earlier in their amicable hour-long talks, Mr Goh congratulated Mr Liang, who is also governor of Jiangsu, on his recent promotion to Jiangsu party chief.
Noting that the eco-city project would be a prime example of sustainable development - a more balanced mode of growth which Beijing is encouraging and which Jiangsu is also seriously looking into - Mr Liang said that he hoped Singapore would apply successful elements of the eco- city in Suzhou, as well as in other parts of Jiangsu.
On the SIP, SM Goh said he was pleased to see that the additional 10 sq km of land granted to the park last year has been developed quickly.
Noting that expanding the 70 sq km park would not have been possible without Mr Wen's approval, Mr Goh said: 'We owe Mr Wen a debt. We must not let him down. The land must be well used.'
Today, Mr Goh will open a 1.2 billion yuan (S$230 million) science hub which is being built on 4 sq km of the extra 10 sq km of land. It will house high-tech firms and those involved in research and development.
Both leaders also spoke on how to attract more Singaporean vacationers to Suzhou.
The key, said SM Goh, is for Suzhou to have 'good food, good shopping and good golfing'. Singaporeans are also drawn by all things 'cheap and good', he said to laughs.
During lunch hosted by Mr Liang, Mr Goh invited the more than 100 Jiangsu companies that are ready for listing, to do so on the Singapore Exchange. There are currently 14 Jiangsu companies which have listed on the SGX, according to Mr Liang.
tracyq@sph.com.sg
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