Major contributor: Visitors at an oven retailer during the China Import and Export Fair in Guangzhou, Guangdong province. Guangdong’s economy, valued at 12.8 trillion yuan (RM8.3 trillion) in 2022, is the largest in all of China’s provinces. — Reuters
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 yesterday that the two-way trade in 2022 grew a record 17% year-on-year to US$23.1bil (RM108bil), largely driven by China’s reopening and a post-Covid-19 rebound.
Bilateral trade in the first quarter of 2023 jumped 54% to US$6.7bil (RM31bil), compared with the same period in 2022, it said.
At the 13th Singapore-Guangdong Collaboration Council (SGCC) meeting yesterdayy, the first in-person event since 2019, Health Minister 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,” 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.
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, 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 in the China-Singapore Guangzhou Knowledge City.
The 232-sq-km township was started in 2010 as a private sector-led endeavour to grow high-tech industries integrated with residential, commercial and recreational developments. — The Straits Times/ANN
