The two countries signed a raft of agreements ahead of the annual Joint Council for Bilateral Cooperation on Monday.

BEIJING: Singapore and China have deepened their economic partnership through a raft of agreements signed ahead of the annual Joint Council for Bilateral Cooperation (JCBC), the highest-level forum between the two countries. The JCBC, which is an annual high-level bilateral platform to discuss ways to deepen and broaden Singapore-China cooperation, will be held on Monday (Feb 27).

For example, International Enterprise Singapore (IE Singapore) will partner Chongqing’s municipal government to facilitate two new projects to improve the municipality’s transport links to the rest of China and beyond.

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This is part of the Chongqing Connectivity Initiative, one of three Government-to-Government level projects between Singapore and China.

The two projects, called the Chongqing Logistics Development Platform and the Multi-Modal Distribution and Connectivity Centre, will develop a Southern Trade Corridor from Chongqing to ASEAN via the port city of Qinzhou in southern Guangxi province.

“In today’s situation, they usually have to go through the Three Gorges Dam, or a railroad which is going up northeast, and there’s a very long route to Shanghai and out to the rest of the world,” said Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office Chan Chun Sing.

“But if we can open up a new route, which we are already embarking on from Chongqing to the Gulf of Tonkin, it will significantly shorten the distance, lower the logistics costs and allow the entire western China to have a new way to bypass potential bottlenecks at the Three Gorges Dam.”

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The new projects will also leverage Chongqing's existing rail linkages to Europe to boost its trade and logistics linkages to Central Asia.

Apart from the two projects, eight other agreements were signed to tap into the enhanced connectivity in Chongqing. These cover infocomm technologies, finance and healthcare.

"I think it's part of China's whole strategy to develop the western region, as well as China's One Belt, One Road strategy,” said IE Singapore chief executive officer Lee Ark Boon.

“It's important for us to further enhance the connectivity in the key nodes in the western part of China, and looking at this, how do we then enhance this link back to Singapore so that Singapore continues to play a relevant role in the development of China in the One Belt, One Road as well as China's Western development strategy."

Singapore and China have also agreed to enhance cooperation for the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-city, which is the second Government-to-Government project between the two countries. These will cover the areas of water resources management, digital media collaboration and medical health collaborations.

The agreements were inked as Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean arrived in Beijing at the invitation of China's Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli.

In a written interview that was published by Chinese news agency Xinhuanet on Sunday, Mr Teo noted that both Singapore and China have a common interest in building a peaceful and growing region, and “this is much greater than any occasional differences of views".

On Sunday (Feb 26), Mr Teo met with Zhao Leji, member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China. He will then co-chair the JCBC meeting with Vice Premier Zhang on Monday.