Guangzhou is a liveable city with economic activeness in its vicinity where China and top talents worldwide can set down roots.
Knowledge City, a proposed project that is envisaged as a lively and environmentally friendly city, is expected to attract and improve talents, knowledge-based industries, and skilled manpower. A training facility will be built in the area that will raise highly skilful workforce.
The proposed project, according to Singapore Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong, will serve as a symbol of the close tie between southern province of Guangdong and Singapore.
Knowledge City, a project proposed by Keppel Corporation, which will be the first iconic partnership between the Guangzhou, the capital city of Guangdong. This project is expected to comprise 50 square kilometres – approximately 10 times the area of Toa Payoh residential estate.
Mr. Xue Xiaofeng, chairman of the Guangzhou Development District Administrative Committee and Lim Chee Onn, chairman of Keppel Corporation, yesterday signed a contract for a business viability study for the project over the following four months.
SM Goh Chok Tong, Wang Yang (Guangdong party secretary), and other senior officials have witnessed the contract signing and showed a strong support both sides for this commercial project.
Keppel Corporation have proposed this project to authorities of Guangzhou last month, after a plan to restructure and upgrade the Pearl River Delta (PRD), China’s main manufacturing and export base, was approved by Beijing.
Mr. Lim said, ”A knowledge city, in our view, fits very nicely with China’s central government’s plan for reorganising the economic activities in the Pearl River Delta“.
The PRD has flourished due to its low-end manufacturing for many years. Under a restructuring plan, the PRD region has to move directly towards high-end sectors, such as financial services, high-technology and services industries to remain pertinent in several years ahead.
Mr. Wang, a 54-year-old political personality, is a major supporter of the reform plan. He lately earned a high-level support from the person responsible in the endorsement of the reform blueprint implementation, President Hu Jintao.
SM Goh compared Guangdong’s reformation with Singapore’s experience of continuously reinventing itself and progress into modern economic areas to prevent from being obsolete. He said, “I can speak from experience that it is never easy to venture out of one’s comfort zone and explore new possibilities”.
He also added, ”The Americans have a saying, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’ But nowadays, even if it ain’t broke, it can become obsolete”.
After becoming the ”dragon head” of the economy of China for 30 years, Guangdong “now has to blaze a new trail to the next level of development”.
“It takes a courageous and visionary leader to recognise the challenges Guangdong faces and to have the determination to confront them”. Mr. Goh said. “I am confident that with his energy and drive, party secretary Wang Yang will succeed in his task”.
According to Professor Tan Kong Yam, director of Asian Research Centre at Nanyang Technological University, skilled workforce is essential to Guangdong’s reformation and its need to raise knowledge-based industries“.
Some training and tertiary institutions in China now face several challenges in producing skilled students, who can be relevant to the market economies. Knowledge City can improve strength in education by introducing vocational teachings and higher-education institutions to provide workers and students with useful, market-oriented skills.