Courage and innovation key to dealing with global uncertainties: Ong Ye Kung
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Singapore's Education Minister Ong Ye Kung speaks at the Sino-Singapore Knowledge Forum at the Four Seasons hotel, on Aug 24, 2018.
ST PHOTO: ALPHONSUS CHERN
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SINGAPORE - Singapore is committed to maintaining a free and open multilateral trading system, and is willing to develop trade partnerships with all countries, said Education Minister Ong Ye Kung at a China-Singapore business forum on Friday (Aug 24).
With protectionism on the rise, coupled with Brexit and the global economic slowdown, being open and innovative is key to dealing with the instability these trends have brought.
"We're facing unprecedented challenges, and we need to be courageous and innovative," said Mr Ong in Mandarin, adding that Singapore and the southeastern Chinese province of Guangdong have much room to collaborate on technological innovation.
He was speaking at the Sino-Singapore Knowledge Forum, an annual event of the Sino-Singapore Guangzhou Knowledge City since 2013.
This is the first year the forum, at the Four Seasons Hotel, is being held in Singapore, and followed the ninth meeting of the Singapore-Guangdong Collaboration Council co-chaired by Mr Ong and Guangdong governor Ma Xingrui on Friday morning.
At least 14 deals were inked between Singapore and Chinese companies at the council meeting, which also saw the two sides committing to raising the Knowledge City to a state-level bilateral cooperation project from a private-led endeavour.
Guangzhou Knowledge City was envisioned as a model that would help propel Guangdong into its next stage of economic development, by focusing on innovative high-tech industries and high-value products and services.
It is run by a joint-venture company between Singapore's Ascendas-Singbridge and Guangzhou Development District Administrative Committee. Since it started development in 2010, the 123-sq-km city about 30km north of Guangzhou city has attracted more than 1,000 companies, with industry clusters in artificial intelligence, biomedicine and new energy materials.
The headquarters of Alibaba Cloud and JD.com's new logistics base have set up shop here.
Panellists at Friday's forum, which included Chinese and Singaporean business chiefs and academics, agreed that the two countries could look to taking their partnership into a third country, following the success of joint developments in Suzhou, Tianjin, Chongqing and Guangzhou.
