China, Singapore build city of the future

China and Singapore are putting their heads together to build the world's first "ecocity" involving government-to-government cooperation in Tianjin, and hope it will be a model for sustainable development, local officials said on Monday.

At the sixth China-Singapore Joint Steering Council Meeting for Tianjin Ecocity, to be held in Singapore on Tuesday morning, there will be an in-depth discussion to chart the way forward for the collaboration in the quest for sustainable urbanization and industrialization .

Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoliand his Singaporean counterpart will be present.

Cui Guangzhi, deputy chief of the Tianjin Ecocity management committee, said that China and Singapore had met their initial environmental goals over the past five years.

By 2017, all infrastructure facilities and environmental programs will be complete, with a view to a population of 350,000, and districts with different functions including an industrial park will come online, said Cui.

When constructors broke ground on this project in September 2008, it was a wasteland of saline-alkali soil and water, recalled Jin Meizhu, chief of the Environmental Bureau of the Ecocity. Five years later the land has been levelled, 300 hectares have been reforested and treatment of a 40-year-old reservoir of industrial sewage is complete.

On a visit in September, Singapore's Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong suggested that the Eco-City could be the first in China to supply piped drinking water.

Liu Jiangang, deputy secretary general of the Tianjin Municipal Government believes the flagship of Sino-Singaporean cooperation has made important steps in energy and resource conservation, ecology preservation and the tackling of climate change.

Attributing the success to multilevel coordination, Liu said there were joint work teams dealing with communities,economic promotion, the environment, mass transit, planning, public housing and water.

The city will have only green buildings. Renewable energy sources such as solar photovoltaic, wind power and ground source heat pumps dominate the city's power supply with an aggregate installed capacity of 17.8 megawatts. With the approval of China's Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, the city has become a national test site for energy-efficient buildings.

Zhou Liqun, executive vice director of the Binhai Development Research Institute of Tianjin's Nankai University, insists that for future development, China and Singapore must attract appropriate industries to increase the appeal and development potential of the town.

The city currently hosts five industrial clusters, namely creative economy, environmental protection, green architecture, information technology, and specialized finance,involving more than 1,000 enterprises and a total investment of 90 billion yuan.

The Ecocity is a bridgehead for Singaporean companies to invest in North China, and more than 60 such companies have already invested 850 million U.S. dollars.

Over the next five years, International Enterprise Singapore will invest 9.5 million Singapore dollars (7.7 million U.S. dollars) to support domestic businesses expanding to north China.

With a current population of just 6,000, schools, shops, community centers and public transportation facilities are gradually coming into service, so the vibrant location is an increasingly comfortable place to live, said Cui Guangzhi.

In Cui's eyes, the city is quite competitive compared to surrounding regions. Local real estate is quite reasonable at 9,100 yuan per square meter, and about 8,300 of 15,826 condos with refined interior decoration and free parking spaces have been sold.

With the city pioneering smart power grids, residents are the first to experience the smart home technology.

Xie Kai who lives in the Hongshuwan Residential Community feels his life is quite cool. "My kid always asks for warm water at midnight. I can lie in bed and use my cellphone to heat up the water in kettle," said he.

Cui Guangzhi said that the goal of the Sino-Singaporean cooperation is not just to build an ecocity but to accumulate replicable experiences for the development of sustainable cities. Based on the development of the town, researchers have established the world's first index system to measure the development of these new settlements.

"Our experiment here can be a benchmark for the development of these cities and blaze a new trail for urban sustainability," said he.