Guangdong remains S’pore’s top Chinese provincial trading partner, bilateral trade at record high
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Guangdong Governor Wang Weizhong (right) with Health Minister Ong Ye Kung at the 13th Singapore-Guangdong Collaboration Council meeting on June 26.
ST PHOTO: GAVIN FOO
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SINGAPORE - Economic ties between Singapore and Guangdong remain robust, with their bilateral trade in 2022 surging to a record high and cementing the latter’s position as Singapore’s top Chinese provincial trading partner for the 34th year.
Enterprise Singapore said on Monday that the two-way trade in 2022 grew a record 17 per cent year on year to US$23.1 billion (S$31.2 billion), largely driven by China’s reopening and a post-Covid-19 rebound.
Bilateral trade in the first quarter of 2023 jumped 54 per cent to US$6.7 billion, compared with the same period in 2022, it said.
At the 13th Singapore-Guangdong Collaboration Council (SGCC) meeting on Monday at Orchard Hotel Singapore, the first in-person event since 2019, Minister for Health and SGCC co-chair Ong Ye Kung said that Singapore companies remain keen to further their commercial interest in the southern Chinese province.
“This is testament to the resilient ties that Singapore and Guangdong share, and the conducive business environment that Guangdong has built up,” Mr Ong said.
A total of 21 memorandums of understanding (MOUs) were signed at the meeting between partners from both sides.
For example, DBS Bank will establish DBS Tech China in the China-Singapore Guangzhou Knowledge City to facilitate innovation and technology developments in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.
The project is DBS’ third one of such nature – after those in Singapore and India – and is expected to grow to a 2,000-strong headcount within three years.
Under the SGCC agreement, three new areas of collaboration were inked – sustainability and green economy, digital economy and smart cities, as well as health and biomedical.
Mr Ong, who co-chairs the council with Guangdong Governor Wang Weizhong, noted that both Singapore and China share common sustainability goals of peaking carbon emission by 2030, and have launched detailed road maps to achieve those objectives.
Citing ComfortDelgro’s new MOU with the Guangzhou Public Transport Group on green energy solutions such as electric vehicle charging and energy storage, Mr Ong said that he hopes to see more collaborations on green economy and sustainability “at the enterprise level”.
Another new project is the one by Keppel’s infrastructure division, which is introducing Energy-as-a-Service solutions (EaaS) in the China-Singapore Guangzhou Knowledge City.
On the digital economy front, Mr Ong noted that Singapore, China, and Asean member states should continue to work on building consensus on the norms that support digital trade and data flows.
“We have made headway in Shenzhen with the completion of technical trials for blockchain-enabled digital trade, and are working on pilots with live transactions,” he noted.
Health Minister Ong Ye Kung (right) and Guangdong Governor Wang Weizhong signed an MOU on Enhanced Cooperation and Renewal of the Singapore-Guangdong Collaboration Council on Monday.
ST PHOTO: GAVIN FOO
Mr Ong also said that Singapore’s Ministry of Health is working with Guangdong medical institutions such as the Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Health to collaborate in research and clinical trials.
Guangdong’s economy, valued at 12.9 trillion yuan (S$2.47 trillion) in 2022, is the largest in all of China’s provinces. However, its gross domestic product grew only 1.9 per cent last year, lower than the 4.7 per cent in both Fujian and Jiangxi that was the highest annual growth rate in the country.
In March, during Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s official visit to China,
