Singapore sees opportunities
Singapore, with its expertise in urban solutions, sees many opportunities to work jointly with India on international standard projects and create more sustainable cities for the future.
Making this call, National Development Minister Lawrence Wong said “between Singapore and India, we see many opportunities to work together in the area of urban solutions and sustainable urban management.”
He pointed out that cooperation between the two countries was broad-based, supported by the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement which covers many areas, including security, trade and investment, and skills development.
Singapore has also worked with the Indian government to draft a master plan for Amaravati, the new capital city of Andhra Pradesh state.
“The project has been attracting interests from international players, and we are already starting to see developments taking place,” noted Wong in his opening address at the Singapore-Indian Business Dialogue 2016 held on Nov 15, 2016.
He highlighted Singaporean companies’ investments in many Indian sectors while the rising number of Indian companies based in Singapore.
Sembcorp, now one of the biggest foreign investors in India’s thermal and renewable energy sector, was an example of strong business relations between the two countries.
“These are important partnerships that we believe will continue to grow over time,” stressed Wong.
Going forward, both Singapore and India face many common challenges, but there are also many new opportunities opening-up.
“Sustainable urbanisation must become part of our planning DNA, for both planners in Singapore and India,” said Wong.
“It must be intrinsic and integral in the way we think about developing our cities.
“Both Singapore and India can partner each other and lead in the area of sustainable development, and together we can build more sustainable and liveable cities, and make our world a better place for humanity,” he said.
Model
As Singapore is rated a model for India’s Smart City initiatives, Wong underlined the city state’s ongoing innovation in developing and maintaining projects.
These innovate methods include and underground district cooling systems for the Marina Bay, a new commercial hub on reclaimed land.
He also cited solar energy development in Singapore by continuing experiments and research work to select buildings for deployment of solar panels.
Singapore is already recognized globally for having a successful high-rise housing scheme.
“We only have 700 square kilometres on our tiny island, and we do everything we can to ensure the best use of our limited resources.
We take the long-term view, and plan over generations, and implement our plans over several terms of government, because many of these things we do for infrastructure and urban development are not short-term in nature,” stressed Wong.
“They are very long term, and we work very hard to develop Singapore as a liveable and sustainable city,” highlighted the Minister.
“Our efforts over the last 50 years have paid off. Today, we are known as a City in a Garden. We are a modern and sophisticated urban city, yet nearly half of our island is covered by greenery.
“We have not pushed urbanisation and development to every square inch of our island, but we maintain half of our island covered with greenery, and we are continuing to enhance our greenery, not just at the street level, but going upwards, with sky-rise greenery. Greenery in our buildings.
“And we also have, all over our island, housing estates nestled in lush greenery and beautiful waters. It’s a living environment that we seek to make as attractive and appealing as possible,” underlined Wong. fii-news.com
