Singapore to transfer ownership of Suzhou Industrial Park to China

SINGAPORE is planning to transfer a major part of the ownership of the Suzhou Industrial Park, a joint Singaporean-Chinese development project that began in 1994, to the Chinese side, according to George Yeo, Singapore's Minister for Trade and Industry.

Yeo made the remark at a press conference here this afternoon where he said that Singapore's shares will go from 65 percent to 35 percent as of January 1, 2001.

According to him, Singapore's Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and his Chinese counterpart Li Lanqing will meet in September to discuss the issue.

In the past five years, the park, in Jiangsu Province, east China, has had 135 projects with US$38.5 billion worth of investment, 130 of them industrial projects worth US$33.2 billion.

Singaporean business people still have confidence in China's economic potential, Yeo said, and transferring ownership won't affect relations between Singapore and China.