The third government-to-government (G-to-G) project between China and Singapore recently announced for Chongqing, a metropolis in southwest China, is destined to bring their cooperation to a new height.
The project, one of a raft of deals signed between the two countries during Chinese President Xi Jinping's state visit to Singapore last week, features the theme of "modern connectivity and modern services."
China and Singapore currently have two G-to-G projects -- the Suzhou Industrial Park established in 1994 in eastern Jiangsu Province and the Tianjin Eco-city inaugurated in 2008 in north China's port city of Tianjin.
The Suzhou park focuses on manufacturing and is home to more than 90 Fortune 500 enterprises, and Tianjin Eco-city aims at an innovation-driven zone of green development.
The Chongqing project is planned as an important nodal point for the Belt and Road Initiative, which was proposed by Xi in 2013 to revive the ancient trade routes that span Asia, Africa and Europe.
With a focus on "modern connectivity and modern services", the Chongqing project came forth against the background of both country's pursuit of transition in their economic development mode.
Singapore hopes that the Chongqing project could "suit China's development needs and fit in China's major plans such as the Western Region Development, the Yangtze River Economic Belt, and the Belt and Road Initiative," Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong told Singaporean newspaper Lianhe Zaobao in an interview prior to his talks with Xi on Saturday.
The project should break new ground in bilateral cooperation and be commercially viable, the prime minister said.
The proposed project, to be operated with Chongqing as the center, will target areas around the metropolis, which makes it different from previous G-to-G projects between the two countries.
During his visit, Xi described the China-Singapore relationship as a partnership of all-round cooperation keeping with the times. Proposed agenda for the Chongqing project put forward a great example for their cooperation in keeping up with the times, analysts said.
The previous G-to-G projects in Suzhou and Tianjin all took aims at urban development, which came in accordance with China's focus in the past decades, said Chen Gang, research fellow at the East Asia Institute, National University of Singapore.
Meanwhile, the Chongqing project is expected to cover a vast area in southwest China with a large rural population, showing a new trend for their cooperation to serve China's rural area and its aspiration for urbanization, Chen said.
Singapore's expertise in international financial and logistic services would be helpful for the proposed Chongqing project focusing on "modern connectivity and modern services," said Koh Chin Yee, CEO of Longus Research Institute in Singapore.
China, in the mean time, is now leading the world in some of the new industries such as the e-commerce, where Singapore has been able to draw strengths, he said.
China's central and western areas are hosting the new impetus for economic growth in the new era, said Koh. The current G-to-G project, therefore, has a special strategic importance, he said.
