On 10 May, the fourth meeting of the Singapore-Nanjing Key Project Cooperation Committee was held in Nanjing. Huang Lixin, Standing Committee member of the Jiangsu provincial Party committee and Party secretary of Nanjing, met with the attendees. Mayor Miao Ruilin and Xu Baokun, minister of state at Singapore Ministry of Trade and Industry and the Ministry of National Development, signed the 2016-2017 annual work plan for the Cooperation Committee. More than one hundred representatives from related companies in Singapore and Nanjing participated in the meeting, including Teo Ser Luck, minister of state at the Ministry of Manpower of Singapore and Luo Dewei, the Singapore consul-general in Shanghai. Yue Lei, senior vice president of Sanpower Group, was invited to the conference and was the only Nanjing business representative to deliver a speech.

 

Nearly four years after the Singapore-Nanjing Cooperation Committee was established, a number of joint projects have been carried out, including relating to the the building of the Singapore Nanjing Eco Hi-tech Island, the hosting of the Youth Olympic Games and cooperation on medical services. Huang Lixin pointed out that Nanjing and Singapore had cooperated well in fields such as the economy and trade, science and technology, education and construction. She expressed her hope that both sides will work hard to expand cooperation and encourage more Singaporean companies to do business Nanjing.

Sanpower leads the way among private Nanjing companies in “going global” and has continually sought multi-level, wide-ranging and comprehensive cooperation opportunities with Singapore during the increasingly close partnership between the city state and Nanjing. Over the past two years, Singaporean political and business representatives from two terms of government have visited Sanpower a total of six times. As an old Chinese saying makes clear, courtesy calls for reciprocity. Sanpower Group Chairman Yuan Yafei and the investment team have visited Singapore on five occasions to explore business opportunities and negotiate projects.

 

Yue Lei introduced in his speech how Sanpower changed from a beneficiary of the cooperation between Singapore and Nanjing to become a driver and doer, organising his talk into three parts: causal relations, sufficient causal conditions, and seize the moment. Yue Lei said, “We achieve more when we work together”. Sanpower has now established a business office in Singapore, following the Sanpower logic of development by “going global and bringing back in”, hoping to cooperate with Singapore in finance, retail and healthcare, among other sectors.

Yue Lei’s speech was very well-received by attendees. Miao Ruilin hoped that companies on both sides would take the initiative to seize opportunities and carry out practical collaborations in the fields such as economy and trade, environmental protection, and education, and expand the space for cooperation between Singapore and Nanjing.