The country's longer-term strategy to meet a post-financial-crisis world must be based on taking advantage of opportunities across the continent, Mr Lee added.

'One of the aspects of the longer-term prosperity which we would have to rely on is strengthening our ties with partners all over Asia, including Ningbo,' he told Mr Bayin Chaolu, the party secretary of the port city in eastern Zhejiang province.

'For Singapore, it is a basic strategy because we cannot prosper by ourselves. You said Ningbo has a small area of 10,000 sq km and 5.5 million people. We have 600 sq km and 4.5 million people. So we are much smaller than you are.'

Mr Bayin, an ethnic Mongol, had earlier told Mr Lee that Ningbo has looked to Singapore as a model of development because both cities face size constraints.

Mr Lee, who was on his first visit to Ningbo, replied that Singapore would encourage more companies to come to the city.

The spirit of cooperation, said Mr Lee, would be one of mutual benefit, just as it has been for Singapore's ties with other Asian cities.

'We have to go all over Asia - all over China, all over India, the Central Asian countries, Middle Eastern countries, in order to take advantage of opportunities which are there, so we can help them to prosper and to grow,' said Mr Lee, who is on a four-day visit of cities in the Yangtze River Delta area.

'And help them to build facilities, infrastructure, development of residential properties. That we can enhance the movement of goods, of trade, of people, of capital between them and Singapore.'

Mr Lee urged Mr Bayin to give his support to Second Minister for Finance and Transport Lim Hwee Hua, who recently took over from Transport Minister Raymond Lim as the Singapore chairman of the Singapore-Zhejiang Economic and Trade Council.

Read the full story in The Sunday Times today.

shpeh@sph.com.sg