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| Cooperation Between Singapore and China's Zhejiang Province Gains Pace |
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| Samedi, 18 Novembre 2006 08:00 | |||
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There are no translations available. Source: Channel News Asia By Channel NewsAsia's China Correspondent Tan Bee Leng ZHEJIANG: Cooperation between Singapore and China's fast-growing coastal province of Zhejiang is gaining pace. Bilateral trade has more than doubled since 2003, and there are now more than 200 Singapore companies there. One such company is working with the Blood Centre to come up with what could eventually be the answer for the treatment of AIDS. Singapore healthcare company CyGenics has developed a cellular growth technology, whereby human T-cells can be grown outside the body for the treatment of HIV. The company claims it will be the first of its kind in the world. "You might have heard of a variety of alternative treatments, pharmaceutical-based and compound-based; I think this is one of the first few attempts to try and use human stem cells to rebuild the human immune system to try and fight against this disease and this would later on lead on to opportunities with tissues and cord blood banking as well. So with this indeed, we are closer to addressing a big growing problem for mankind," said Steven Fang, CEO & Executive Director, CyGenics. As Zhejiang develops economically, there are also opportunities for Singapore companies to provide services in areas such as logistics and transport. A potential project is a Mass Rapid Transit system for its capital Hangzhou, which Singapore's SMRT Corporation has expressed an interest in. Besides helping Singapore companies venture into Zhejiang, the Singapore-Zhejiang Economic & Trade Council is also keen to help Zhejiang's privately-owned enterprises or POEs venture abroad. Zhejiang is known as the cradle of China's entrepreneurs, over 95 percent of enterprises here in the province are privately-owned; in fact POEs contributed as much as 67 percent of the province's GDP last year. Only 6 out of the 106 Chinese companies listed in Singapore Stock Exchange are from Zhejiang. At the fourth Singapore-Zhejiang Economic & Trade Council meeting organised by International Enterprise Singapore, Singapore's Transport Minister, who's also the Co-Chairman of the Council, called on businessmen to venture abroad, especially to Singapore. "If you are a small company, you must have the ambition to grow big, even if you are family-owned companies, you've ambitions to want to grow big and you need to find capital to help you expand. If you think you don't need the capital because you are family-run company, you've your own access to private capital, you still want to internationalise, so again there's the grand proposition to come into Singapore," said Raymond Lim, Singapore Minister for Transport, Second Minister for Foreign Affairs. Since the establishment of the Council in 2003, bilateral trade between Singapore and Zhejiang province has more than double from US$850min 2003, to US$1.74b in 2005. - CNA /dt
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