Led by four cluster leaders from Singapore, these infocomm companies have helped to develop the city-state's regional-hub disciplines into four specific vertical segments: transportation, logistics, health care and financial services. Singapore infocomm companies' experience and expertise in developing information-technology (IT) solutions over the past two decades has been recognized internationally. The World Economic Forum in its Global Information Technology Report for 2003-04 named Singapore the second-most-IT-savvy nation in the world after the United States.

However, it has not always been a bed of roses. There were some thorny issues in the past when dealing with China. Singapore experienced its fair share of bitter embarrassment when it decided to build a $30 billion industrial park in the eastern Chinese city of Suzhou to serve as a model for foreign investment in China. The project, called the China-Singapore Suzhou Industrial Park, which was to be developed as a self-contained manufacturing and high-technology center covering 70 square kilometers, ran aground when the local officials in Suzhou decided to build a similar industrial park a stone's throw away. Dubbed the Suzhou New District Industrial Park, it soon began to compete aggressively with Suzhou Industrial Park and managed to outpace and outmaneuver it by getting more foreign multinationals to set up their base of operations in the New District park.

It was a major embarrassment to Singaporean Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew, who first mooted the idea for a joint Singapore-China industrial park in Suzhou. The Singaporean government, and a bevy of private Singaporean companies, had pooled in almost $147 million and committed more in loans against the completion of the project. In a face-saving exercise, the Singapore side agreed to scale down its shareholding from 65% to 35% in January 2001.

Despite that sour point, bilateral trade between China and Singapore has grown seven times over the past 12 years, and exceeded $21 billion in 2003. Singaporean companies have also put close to $40 billion worth of investments into China throughout the years. The number of Singaporean investment projects in China is expected to reach 10,000 by the end of this year.

With the rapid worldwide expansion in the infocomm market, the SSC will be positioned to offer Chinese companies easy access to tested, proven infocomm competencies accumulated by Singapore's 19 solution partners. There were several wins announced recently as a result of this initiative. Singapore Computer Systems secured a contract valued at more than 10 million yuan ($830,000) with Beijing TongRen Hospital. After the complete implementation of SSC's solution, TongRen will be one of the first hospitals in China to deploy a fully computerized hospital information and management system. Partnerships such as this augur well for the future of SSC in China.

Stratech Systems won a bid recently to help develop an urban transport policy and planning white paper for the Shanghai municipal government. It demonstrated its next-generation gantry-less Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) system "live" in Shanghai city, while addressing some of the limitations under the existing systems.

National Computer Systems (NCS), which has been active in China's banking and finance industry since 1990, has expanded its presence from Beijing and Shanghai to other major cities such as Fuzhou, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Wuhan and Shenyang. Some of its customers include the largest banking groups - China Construction Bank, Agricultural Bank of China, HuaXia Bank, Bank of Communication, CITIC Industrial Bank and the China Everbright Bank.

A logistics company, IPACS e-Solutions, has developed and is implementing IT systems with several Chinese logistics companies including EAS, ADP, Shanghai Rainbow Logistics and ST ANDA Logistics.

The Singapore Solutions Center will also showcase locally developed infocomm products from companies such as Creative Technology, AXS Infocomm and ST LogiTrack. Besides the benefit of rolling out infocomm solutions in China, this joint collaboration also provides opportunities for Chinese enterprises to get to know Singaporean companies so that they can jointly search for mutually beneficial businesses.

Dr Lee Boon Yang, Singapore's minister for information, communications and the arts, says the proposed free-trade agreement (FTA) between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will further strengthen the links between the ASEAN countries in the region. "This FTA when realized will bring together China and ASEAN's trading partners to leverage on the consumer power of a total population of 1.7 billion people. This trade pact will in effect become the largest trade agreement in the world," he said.

He also said bilateral cooperation such as that between Chinese and Singaporean companies can take place in any part of the world so long as the market potential exists. And right now China seems to be enjoying a boom in economic growth.

Why was Shanghai chosen over other Chinese cities for launching the SSC? Shanghai has an earlier relationship with Singapore's IDA. "I recall that in November 2002, the Shanghai Informatization Office and IDA signed a memorandum of understanding to accelerate bilateral collaborations and information exchanges in all areas of IT between Shanghai and Singapore. The formation of the Singapore Solutions Center here is one step forward in this bilateral cooperation," said Dr Lee.

Observers believe that the rapid pace of deployment of infocomm technology in large cities such as Shanghai is unparalleled compared with other cities in China. In Shanghai alone over the past five years, mobile-phone users have increased more than five-fold to 11 million, and Internet users grew four times to record 4.3 million subscribers.

"This will also have profound implications for the regional markets and spur further economic growth for the rest of Asia. With China's entry into the WTO [World Trade Organization], we believe Chinese companies will soon have to make more investments in their infocomm system so as to be connected to the global economic system and remain at the forefront of competition," said Lee.

The Chinese economy has been one of the brightest spots in the global economy. Its gross domestic product (GDP) has expanded at a phenomenal rate of more than 8% per annum and is expected to continue this streak at least until the end of this year. "This extraordinary growth is seen as something unprecedented in recent history as we see [a] tremendous push to vitalize all segments of her economy from the construction and shipbuilding boom to the large imports of raw commodities like coal and iron ore to feed this rapid expansion in her economy," said a trade economist with Far East National Bank in Hong Kong.

It is interesting to note that when China opened its market in 1978, Singapore was the first country in Southeast Asia to rush to invest in its economic modernization. More recently, Chinese companies have also looked to Singapore for opportunities especially to take advantage of its equities market. In response to the Chinese government's call to list overseas, 41 Chinese enterprises have listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange and used Singapore as their launch pad into Asia. Singapore is now considered China's seventh-largest FDI source and eighth-largest trading partner, while China is Singapore's fifth-largest trading partner.


                                                      Home