Singaporean Deputy PM encourages cooperation with China

Singapore has encouraged its people to get along well with and learn from China's fast growth, visiting Singaporean Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said Sunday in Shanghai.

Lee made the remark at a ribbon-cutting ceremony of Raffles City, a 350-million-US-dollar complex invested by some Singaporean companies, which has become Shanghai's new landmark building.

Singapore should, on one hand, lower its production cost and give up disadvantaged industries in the competition with China. Onthe other hand, Singaporean businesses are advised to invest in this Asia's fastest-growing economy, said Lee in Chinese.

He said China's more explicit legal documents and simplified administrative procedures after its accession to the World Trade Organization have created an environment more favorable to business activities.

The deputy prime minister's message means that the government supports Singaporean business people's expanding markets in China,said Liew Mun Leong, president of Capital and Limited, one investor of the Raffles City. Liew said his company will double investment in China in the coming five years to bring the total sum to 24 billion yuan (2.9 billion US dollars).

Statistics from China's Ministry of Commerce show that accumulated investment from Singapore in China is 40 billion US dollars, and the figures in 1993 and 1998 were 5 billion and 30 billion dollars, respectively. The investment mainly went to industrial zones, real estate, hi-tech industry and education.

Lee also highlighted the role of increasing non-governmental exchanges, noting that there are hardly any cultural and lingual obstacles between people in Shanghai and Singapore.

Both Singapore and Shanghai are commercial and transportation hubs in their own regions, and the two can naturally be partners in a rising East Asia, Lee said.

Source: Xinhua