DPM Gan Kim Yong at the Media Wrap-up of the 21st Joint Council for Bilateral Cooperation in Chongqing, China

DPM Gan Kim Yong: This morning and afternoon in Chongqing, my colleagues and I had a very productive discussion with Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang and as well as our Chinese counterparts at the 21^st Joint Council for Bilateral Cooperation (JCBC) and related Joint Steering Council (JSC) meetings.

We reaffirmed the longstanding partnership between Singapore and China. This partnership has grown and deepened over the decades to become an all-round, high-quality and future-oriented partnership.

A major focus was on how we can continue leveraging our three Government-to-Government projects to explore new areas of collaboration. In particular, on the occasion of the Chongqing Connectivity Initiative (CCI)'s 10^th anniversary, we discussed how we can build on the CCI’s core strengths of connectivity and services to new areas such as green growth, digital transformation and supply chain resilience. And also extend it to new markets such as Central Asia, and bring on board new business and trade and logistic flows. Minister Josephine Teo will shortly share more about the CCI and the various collaborations.

We also discussed how we can expand our bilateral collaboration in areas such as financial connectivity, education, science and tech collaboration particularly in green technologies and health, food trade, as well as cultural and youth exchanges.

Allow me to elaborate on the first two – financial connectivity and education – and I will invite my colleagues to share more about the others.

First, let me start with the financial connectivity. I am glad to announce that DBS has been appointed as the second Renminbi (RMB) clearing bank in Singapore. This will enhance our status as the leading offshore RMB clearing centre.

With the support of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), MAS and SGX will be extending the secondary listing framework for companies listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange and the Shanghai Stock Exchange to secondary list in Singapore. This will enable such corporates to access international capital and provide additional funding channels for regional business expansions.

I am also happy to note the commencement of the over-the-counter bond market arrangement through Bank of China and DBS, which will allow designated banks in Singapore to provide institutional investors with access to selected fixed income products on the China Interbank Bond Market. This will further reinforce Singapore's role as a gateway for investors seeking Asian investment opportunities, and therefore strengthen our position as a fixed income and asset management hub.

We are also launching a pilot for Singapore to use eCNY in China by the end of this year. This will make payments even more convenient for tourists visiting China.

Together, these initiatives will deepen financial connectivity between Singapore and China, boost Singapore's status as a financial hub and support our growth as well as the trade and investment and people-to-people linkages.

On education exchanges, we announced a slew of partnerships between our universities. These collaborations include areas like advanced manufacturing, life sciences and health, and AI governance, which are aligned with Singapore’s RIE2030 (Research, Innovation and Enterprise 2030) priorities. Our students and researchers will be able to benefit from China's vibrant innovation ecosystem by having access to more joint education programmes, joint laboratories and joint education spaces. This will broaden their horizons and enhance their expertise.

This year's JCBC caps off a fruitful year of Singapore-China relations as we commemorate the 35th anniversary of diplomatic relations. These include Prime Minister Lawrence Wong's visit as well as Chinese Premier Li Qiang's introductory visit to Singapore. Today's meetings reaffirm how Singapore and China remain committed to work together in the spirit of mutual trust and respect so that we can better navigate global uncertainties, open up new opportunities for our economies and businesses and improve the lives of our people.

I will now say a few words in Mandarin.

第二十一届新中双边合作联合委员会（JCBC）会议今早成功的举行，也圆满的结束了。会议务实、高效，我们也取得了一系列实质的成果。

我非常高兴能够再一次与丁薛祥副总理进行会面。新中两国关系坚固、源远流长, 双边在互利互惠的原则和基础上推动了两国全方位高质量前瞻性的伙伴关系。双方高度的认同有必要继续拓展和深化双边的合作，让两国的经济更加坚韧稳定，为两国的企业和人民谋求更多的福利。

今早我们重点讨论了如何推进三项政府间双边合作项目，继续为两国的发展做出贡献。其中，中新 （重庆） 战略性互联互通项目在过去十年里取得了非常显著的进展。双方还就多领域达成新的合作共识，包括金融的互联互通、教育、涉及绿色科技和医疗等领域的科技创新合作、食品贸易，以及文化和青年交流等。

在金融合作方便，双方指定了第二家新加坡人民币业务清算行，就是星展銀行。这将进一步巩固新加坡作为中国以外最大离岸人民币中心之一的地位。我们也将在年底之前施行让新加坡人能够在中国能够使用数字人民币（eCNY），让新加坡游客在中国消费变得更加轻松、便利。

我们也公布了一系列高校间的合作计划。新加坡的学生和研究人员将有机会更深入地接触中国蓬勃发展的创新生态，参与更多的联合课程、联合实验室、联合孵化空间等，从中开阔视野，提升专业能力。

当前国际形势复杂多变，但新中双方始终坚持聚焦互利共赢的合作。双方将继续长期建立的互信为基础，推动双边合作取得更多实质的成果。继续造福两国的人民。

Now I would like to invite [Minister for Digital Development and Information] Josephine Teo to share more about [the] CCI and projects related to [the] CCI.

Minister Josephine Teo: Thank you DPM Gan. Friends of the media, some of you will be aware that the Chongqing Connectivity Initiative is the 3^rd bilateral cooperation project at the flagship level between Singapore and China. And when the project was first conceptualized, the idea was to find a way to support China's development priorities. And at the time, it was Western Region development. And as a result, the whole concept was to enable businesses and people on both sides to benefit, whilst at the same time supporting Western Region development.

Four pillars were identified, and I am glad to say that there has been good progress in terms of policy innovation in all four areas. There have been other fact sheet and documents that have been provided to you, so I would not go into them in detail. I would just add that the very nature of the CCI construct enabled us to explore other emerging areas that turn out to be fruitful. For example, collaborations in education, collaborations in healthcare became also very interesting. The Raffles Medical Group for example, set up a hospital here, and later this evening, we are going to the healthcare city that Perennial Holdings is developing.

The most significant achievement of the CCI has got to be the CCI International Land Sea Trade Corridor- the ILSTC. It has got strategic value in terms of linking of Western China with Southeast Asia through the important gateways of Chongqing and Singapore. And as a result, we have seen that there was very significant progress along the ILSTC. Now this being the 10th Anniversary of the CCI, it is timely for us to refresh the vision.

And so, during the joint steering council meeting, the document for the vision for cooperation of the CCI in the next phase was also agreed upon. It catered to important developments in the global environment, where trade and investment trends have become much more constrained, much more difficult and challenging.  But at the same time, it responds to the important mega trends that both countries have to deal with, which is digitalisation and sustainability.

The good thing is that CCI has a very flexible construct. It is intended to focus on modern connectivity and modern services, and so within the ambit of modern connectivity and modern services, we can define and identify what are the most responsive ways of dealing with the opportunities. And there are two that have been identified.

First in terms of strengthening region to region collaboration, the ILSTC will extend its reach to Central Asia. You saw also the launch of the trade service that starts from Yuzui Terminal. This is only the beginning. We hope that more of such services can be provided on a regular basis and this is a joint commitment on the part of Singapore as well as Chongqing teams that are working on the CCI.

At the same time, it is also very timely that we are launching this extension to Central Asia. You would recall that ASEAN and China have upgraded its free trade agreement to the 3.0 version, and so economic integration as a backdrop provides us with exciting imperatives in terms of advancing this development of the CCI ILSTC. Importantly, we would like to overlay the CCI ILSTC with the digital component. And so, there was an agreement signed on digital CCI ILSTC as well.

Finally, the other project that was agreed upon is the Joint Innovation Development Fund (JIDF). When the JIDF was first started, we committed to set aside in total 40 million RMB to support innovation projects coming out companies in Singapore as well as companies in Chongqing. We will now grow the fund to 100 million RMB. It is a sizeable expansion of the fund and it reflects the kind of confidence that the leaders of both sides have in terms of joint projects between companies in Singapore as well as companies in Chongqing working together to take a good advantage of the opportunities that are emerging in various fields.

DPM Gan: I will now invite See Leng to talk about science and tech as well as energy.

Minister Tan See Leng: Hello, good afternoon, everyone. Trust that everyone had lunch and a good break. I wanted to share with you the three very strategic pillars that we have achieved and because of the long-standing partnership that we have between China and ourselves. So I am going to focus on these three areas – the first pillar of energy.

Now, since the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on energy cooperation in 2023, we have been actively exchanging insights on key energy developments and also studying collaborations for the deployment of low carbon energy solutions. You would have also read that NTU and the China's National Ocean Technology Centre – they are also discussing research collaboration on marine energy.

But you could wonder, given the smallness of the seas around us, what do we have to offer? Well, in terms of the design of the wave technology, systems they have got three research centres located in China that we can collaborate with. And the plan is to take these designs, conceptualise it and make it into a proof of concept we can sell to the whole world.

Now, our officials have also visited cities including Beijing and Shanghai to explore clean energy and also grid collaborations with the Chinese partners. And we certainly welcome China's participation in the development of the ASEAN power grid, which will require significant investments in new energy assets as well as the grid infrastructure.

Then we move on to the second pillar, which is the science and tech as well as innovation. Beyond energy, this year, Singapore's National Research Foundation or NRF and China's Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) signed an MOU on strengthening cooperation in science, technology and innovation. Through this MOU, we hope to reaffirm both countries’ commitment to strengthening bilateral cooperation in the priority areas of health, clean energy, water and environment.

This year, in July, between NRF and MOST, we launched the fourth Singapore-China joint flagship grant call on the topic of health, and this is one of the priority areas that we have jointly identified. Under this pillar, we are focusing on pandemic preparedness as well as ageing. For both sides under the grant call, we have increased the number of supported projects from two to three for the fourth flagship call.

And we will both continue to support, promote science and technology innovation by supporting grant calls and joint research collaborations, three thematic expert workshops and people-to-people exchanges to enhance talent mobility and capability building.

The last pillar is with Enterprise Singapore (Enterprise SG). Enterprise SG has also launched the Co-innovation Programmes (CIP) with Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang as well as Shenzhen since 2020. And in the last five years, the CIP has supported over 40 projects in the fields of green and sustainability, AI and technology, and biomedical sciences. So we are very optimistic. We look forward to further collaboration. Thank you.

DPM Gan: Thank you. I will now call upon Senior Minister of State Zaqy Mohamad to talk about collaboration in trade of food products.

SMS Zaqy Mohamad: Thank you DPM, we have had very good discussions and MOUs being signed with on this area of food trade, food safety and food innovation. These three areas are greatly expanding with China. And JCBC has seen us, you know, the growth of food trade beyond JCBC has grown from strength to strength. So over two years from 2022 to 2024, we have seen about 36 percent growth of food exports from China into Singapore, from $1.1 billion in 2022 to $1.5 billion last year.

In turn, Singapore’s agriculture exports into China too, has grown by significant bounds over two years, from $1.4 billion in 2022 to $1.9 billion over the same period. So we think this is a two-way street in terms of food growth, food trade growth. And there is certainly mutual interest for us to expand market access, not just from China to Singapore as a hub, but for Singapore food manufacturers to expand into China and gain market access into various cities and provinces. This JCBC we further expanded market access by concluding a new protocol on the export of processed meat products into China, and that enables Singapore-based food processors and food manufacturers to export processed meat into China. At the same time, we also approved various import sources of meat products from Chongqing, Heilongjiang, as well as Hunan, from China to Singapore.

So these approvals support Singapore’s overall strategy in terms of food resilience and giving us greater diversity of food imports. At the same time, giving us more choice and certainly to give us greater supply of meats and processed meats into Singapore, and that I think that gives Singapore consumers more choices as well. Likewise, with greater exports, market access, we hope that this also helps many of our local food manufacturers, processors, exporters, to expand their business growth and also hopefully create good jobs in Singapore.

On the food safety front, given the interest on both sides, I think when you talk about increased market access, wider reach of products, I think food safety becomes a very important interest on both sides to expand our collaboration in this field. So with this JCBC, we have also expanded our MOU between Singapore Food Agency (SFA) as well as the State Administration for Market Regulation in October this year.

In this new MOU, we also not just renewed it, but we also expanded cooperation into food testing methodologies, as well as food health interface products to include items such as foods with added Traditional Chinese Medicine materials.

And on food innovation, I think that is another interesting area for us because China is pretty well-known for this. We are working with China to enhance food innovation and leverage technology to enhance local food production. So during the Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment’s (MSE) inaugural Joint Working Group meeting with the agricultural cooperation with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs in July this year, we had good meetings to see how we can expand food collaboration or innovation in terms of seed production, technologies, as well as aqua-farming techniques.

And beyond that, we are also expanding collaboration with the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences on indoor speed breeding of leafy vegetables – and these are common vegetables that Singaporeans eat too, and that, I think hopefully helps build up our farming production in Singapore as well. So we are working on both, I think all are important, diversifying our food sources, growing our local produce and at the same time, looking at innovations in food safety. Thank you.

DPM Gan: Thank you. Lastly, I invite Senior Minister of State Low Yen Ling to talk about cultural and youth exchanges.

SMS Low Yen Ling: Thank you DPM, good afternoon to friends of media. In 2023, two and a half years ago, remember that Singapore and China upgraded our bilateral ties to 全方高质量前瞻性伙伴关系 (All-Round High Quality Future Oriented Partnership). And we have since then, in the last two and a half years, actually seen really stronger momentum of our collaboration, not just expansion, but also deepening of the cooperation, beyond economics - in arts and culture, in heritage and museum. In sports, not just MCCY, but Sports Singapore as well as National Sports Association (NSA) and also Youth Exchange.

Now, just very quickly, for example, for culture- National Gallery Singapore (NGS) brought Georgette Chen’s exhibition to He Xiangning Art Museum in Shenzhen, from 9^th August to 7^th December. It was very well received. And this is under an arrangement of what we call a reciprocal type of arrangement and in fact, we look forward to the reciprocal traveling exhibition of He Xiangning to NGS next year.

And not just NGS, but National Heritage Board (NHB) have been working with the counterparts, not just with Beijing, Shanghai, but key provinces. For example, we have seen that in the last two and a half years in this area, the exchanges in arts and culture, heritage and museum has become more sustained, more wide ranging, with collaboration expanding beyond and across multiple cities unfolding across extended period. You may be aware, Peranakan Museum’s exhibition was very well received. It travelled to four museums across four Chinese cities.

And in the area of sports, this 21^st JCBC, we have worked with General Administration of Sports of China (GASC), and we signed several MOUs signifying closer partnership as well like exchanges with the Chinese at all levels. For example, MCCY, we signed the agreement with GASC, and this will go some way to strengthen our technical and professional cooperation between both parties to advance some shared goals in sports. For example, this particular agreement, the MOU will encourage our respective National Sports Associations (NSAs) to establish direct links.

And we are happy to see that the 武术总会, the Singapore Wushu Dragon and Lion Dance Federation, has already signed an agreement with their counterpart, and that is the Chinese Wushu Association covering enhanced exchanges in training. They got very high standard. So it is always good to foster collaboration with them. Exchanges in training competition as well as development of technical knowledge. Now this will involve exchanging best practices in athlete training, coaching development, as well as sharpening their shared expertise in competition, judging and also empowering.

You wonder, why is this necessary? Because Wushu actually is quite subjective. So how do you do empowering? How do you do judging is actually quite important. Now this is just an example. And I just want to share that the example I highlighted whether in arts and culture, heritage, museum, sports- they not only strengthen the capabilities of all people. But also, in a way, open new opportunities for artists, our artists, athletes and youth, to grow, to innovate and to gain global exposure. Well, at the same time as we bring the Peranakan Museum to different cities, it helps to also share our unique Singaporean identity and values with one another.

So really, in essence, we have gone really a long way since two and a half years ago. We forge very good momentum. And in terms of deepening cooperation beyond economics, in arts and culture, in sports, in youth exchange, because we believe that cooperation in this area that goes beyond economic really play a critical role in building trust, understanding and long-term relationship between Singapore and China, and it truly reflects an all-around high quality, future oriented partnership. Thank you.