On Tuesday I attended the Singapore Nanjing Eco Hi-Tech island promotion conference at MBS Singapore. A really interesting event show casing the investment opportunities available within this joint Singapore / Nanjing venture and the greater Nanjing area. The conference was jointly headed by Mr Teo Sur Luck, Singapore minister of trade and industry and Mr Ji Jianye mayor of Nanjing. (click for news reports).
It’s an interesting development with Nanjing looking to capitalise on its excellent connections, many hundreds of universities and established technology sector. Currently Nanjing is famous for its car and steel based manufacturing industry, but is changing to encompass new technology. In fact it’s the largest software hub within mainland China and is looking to expand across a range of other high tech industries such as petro-chemical, bio-chemical, LCD manufacture and primarily into green technologies such as renewables, water treatment and resource management. Already the city is looking to install a complete energy smart grid, the largest and first of its kind in China.
Hand in hand with this strategy is a push to attract technology entrepreneurs with 10,000 apartments (100 sqm each) and also 10,000 offices (also 100 sqm each) being provided free of charge for three years. An additional 30,000 sets of the above will also be provided by Nanjing for entrepreneurs with government funding, and funding for projects can be up to 70% of its value over three years. There is also a range of tax breaks, free healthcare and schooling plus a green card and driving licence offered for foreigners wishing to take part – seems too good to be true!
The Singapore – Nanjing hi-tech island is a 15sqkm strip of land in the Yangtze river just off shore from Nanjing city. The idea here is to develop a completely new city with eco-friendly credentials to act as both a commercial and technology hub for the different target groups of technology. SembCorp from Singapore are providing much of the investment in infrastructure based on the Singapore One North science park. The great news here is that Nanjing is going to benefit from the experience of Singapore and also the eco-friendly approach to ‘sustainable’ planned city engineering. A similar concept to the Tianjin Eco city in the North of China, it will be interesting to see how the city grows, thrives and sits within its environment. I look forward to visiting in the future!
Capital Green 