Singapore and Zhejiang to jointly fund innovative projects in digital economy, sustainability

SINGAPORE - Singapore is deepening collaboration with China's eastern Zhejiang province, with a new joint programme that funds innovative projects in areas such as digital economy, sustainability and smart cities.

The programme was announced at the 16th Singapore-Zhejiang Economic and Trade Council (SZETC) meeting on Tuesday (April 26), which was co-chaired by Senior Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and National Development Sim Ann and Zhejiang vice-governor, Mr Zhu Congjiu.

The Singapore-China Yangtze River Delta (Zhejiang) Joint Innovation Call Programme is an expansion of a pilot programme last year, which connected Singapore companies with those in Zhejiang and supported them to innovate and commercialise projects.

"Building on the foundation established through the SZETC, we aim to help more Singapore companies capture new opportunities in the province and the greater Yangtze River Delta region, especially in the areas of digital economy and innovation," said Ms Sim.

She added that Zhejiang enterprises can continue to use Singapore as a launch pad and partner more companies here as they explore opportunities in South-east Asia.

The joint call programme, launched and hosted by Enterprise Singapore and the Zhejiang Department of Science and Technology, will be open for applications in the third quarter of this year.

Eight memoranda of understanding in areas such as digital technology, finance and sustainability were also signed at the meeting.

One of them was between OCBC Wing Hang Bank (China) and Dian Diagnostics Group for the latter's growth and expansion into Singapore and South-east Asia.

The SZETC consists of government and private sector representatives from Singapore and Zhejiang and aims to promote economic exchanges and cooperation between Zhejiang province and Singapore.

The leaders also reaffirmed the strong economic ties between Singapore and Zhejiang, noting the good progress achieved in the key areas of trade and connectivity, innovation and people exchanges, and sustainable urban management. These were initiated at the 15th SZETC meeting in December 2020.

Economic relations between Singapore and Zhejiang remained strong despite the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2021, bilateral trade grew 18.4 per cent year-on-year to reach US$6.91 billion (S$9.5 billion), while Singapore's actual cumulative investments in Zhejiang increased a further 9.8 per cent, bringing the total to US$8.26 billion.

Mr Zhu said the provincial government would also step up efforts to encourage Zhejiang-based enterprises to increase their presence in Singapore

With Singapore as the launch pad, Zhejiang enterprises can expand their investment and trade cooperation with Asean countries, he said.

There were more than 1,550 Singapore projects on trade and connectivity in Zhejiang as at end-2021, which had increased steadily with the growing bilateral trade and investments. As at 2021, there were about 280 Zhejiang companies in Singapore.