Republic can help Chinese city to upgrade business infrastructure

By Clarissa Oon, CHINA CORRESPONDENT
Jun 30, 2007
The Straits Times

TIANJIN - SINCE China's former central bank chief Dai Xianglong became mayor of north-eastern Tianjin four years ago, the port city has moved swiftly from a sleepy industrial backwater to a manufacturing hub.

Now that the central government is pushing Tianjin to be the growth engine of northern China, it needs a major upgrade of its port and business infrastructure, Mr Dai told the Singapore media this week.

This is where Singapore, 'a very vibrant international shipping, trading and financial centre' with 'high-calibre professional expertise' can help, the mayor said.

Mr Dai, 62, met Singapore reporters on Wednesday during National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan's trip to Tianjin. The mayor himself has visited Singapore more than 10 times throughout his career.

'Our port cannot compete with yours. We handled 700,000 shipping containers last year, but your annual container volumes are around 25 million,' said Mr Dai, in what was a rare press interview granted by a local Chinese leader.

The mayor and Mr Mah co-chaired the inaugural meeting of a bilateral economic council on Wednesday. Mr Mah ended his four-day visit to Tianjin yesterday.

Singapore officials and businessmen have been quick to move into the municipality. Tianjin leaders like Mr Dai - a former governor of the People's Bank of China - have welcomed them with open arms.

Tianjin now has more than 600 Singapore firms with a total investment of US$1.3 billion (S$1.9 billion). Last year, Singapore was the municipality's seventh largest foreign investor.

Mr Dai singled out port construction and management as the most pressing area of bilateral cooperation.

Tianjin's port is now undergoing a 50 billion yuan (S$10 billion) overhaul in order to meet the grand ambitions set out by China's current five-year economic plan. By 2010, it is expected to handle over 300 million tonnes of cargo and 10 million containers.

Bilateral business opportunities can also be found in utilities management and township and real estate development, said Mr Dai.

Singapore firms already active in Tianjin include port operator PSA, property developers Yanlord and Keppel Corporation as well as major logistics and water treatment companies.

The city's recent surge is key to Chinese President Hu Jintao and Tianjin-born Premier Wen Jiabao's plan to rejuvenate the northern Bohai Rim area, which includes Tianjin, Beijing and Hebei.

Observers say the plan involves moving manufacturing and some R&D from the Chinese capital to neighbouring Tianjin, 160km away.

Tianjin's massive economic zone, the Binhai New Area, is now fast catching up in output with Pudong, the Shanghai economic district which powered eastern China's growth in the 1990s.

Spread out over a land area four times larger than Pudong and several times that of Singapore, Binhai's GDP last year hit 196 billion yuan. This was 80 per cent of Pudong's GDP, up from 45 per cent a decade ago.

When asked about Binhai's prospects of becoming the Pudong of the north, the soft-spoken Mr Dai gave a cautious, politically correct reply.

'Tianjin's growth must now proceed according to the principles of 'scientific development'. It is different from earlier economic success stories like Shenzhen and Pudong,' he said.

'Scientific development' is President Hu's pet doctrine, which advocates more environmentally friendly, socially equitable development instead of just unbridled, numbers-driven growth. China is currently facing a widening income gap between and within different regions.

Given the country's present stage of development, Tianjin's challenge is to be 'not just an economic new area, but a socially sound new area', an 'eco-friendly new area' ', said Mr Dai.

In recent months, the municipality has gone through a high-level personnel shakeup. This was widely believed to be an attempt to root out corruption, which is widespread in China.

The head of Tianjin's advisory committee to the national legislature killed himself earlier this month while being investigated for corruption, while the city's chief prosecutor was dismissed last year for disciplinary reasons, media reported.

The director of the Binhai New Area has also been replaced for unknown reasons.

Observers said the appointment in March of a new party chief for Tianjin, Mr Zhang Gaoli, was a bid to clean up the political mess. Mr Zhang was formerly the party secretary of coastal Shandong province.

Alluding to the corruption cases, Mr Dai said officials steering the city's economic growth must 'put people first', adding that the new leadership could only be a good thing for the city.

'Zhang Gaoli has extensive experience in steering coastal cities. He is an ideal person to push Tianjin and Binhai's development,' he said.

clare@sph.com.sg

» Have your say on this and other issues in our forum pages