Vice-Premier Urges Boost for Suzhou Industrial ParkVice-Premier Li Lanqing said here Friday that China and Singapore should make joint efforts to further develop the Suzhou Industrial Park and make it thrive even more.Li said this while attending a ceremony to mark the seventh anniversary of the park, which is located in this city in east China's Jiangsu Province. He said that the process of adjusting the equity share of the park has been completed, signifying that the park has entered a new stage, with China holding the majority of the shares. After the adjustment, both the framework of cooperation between the two countries and the goal of the development of the park remain unchanged, he said. He said the two countries should make greater efforts to expand cooperation, to ensure that the park keeps developing with a strong momentum. Li said that the Chinese government will, as always, support the development of the park, and hopes that the park can combine China's domestic conditions with Singapore's experience. The park should make bold explorations in reforming operating systems so as to sharpen its competitive edge and become a modern industrial zone with Chinese characteristics. Lee Kuan Yew, senior minister in the Prime Minister's Office of Singapore, attended the ceremony, and spoke highly of the efforts of both sides for the development of the park. He also said that the Singaporean government will continue to support the development of the Park. Before the ceremony, Li and Lee cut the ribbon for an exhibition on the park's achievements, and attended a signing ceremony for an agreement between the management committee of the park and a Singaporean company. Li and Lee also unveiled a sculpture in the park Friday. The Suzhou Industrial Park, a project jointly sponsored by the two governments, has scored remarkable achievements with efforts from both sides since it was initiated in 1994. By the end of May, the park has injected over eight billion yuan (about one billion U.S. dollars) into its infrastructure, and made use of 4.2 billion U.S. dollars in overseas investment. On an area of 12 square kilometers of newly-developed land, new- and high-tech industries covering electronics, information, machinery, biology, pharmacy and new materials have taken shape. Li hosted a dinner here Friday evening in honor of Lee. Suzhou Industrial Park Aims HighSuzhou Mayor Yang Weize said Friday that the decision is part of the park's efforts to greatly increase its innovation capability and international competitiveness. The strategy of the park is to create a number of well-known software enterprises that can carve out their own shares of the global market, Yang said. Over the next three years, Yang said, the park plans to maintain its annual GDP growth at 50 percent. According to Yang, an average of two million yuan will be injected into infrastructure annually, and in three to five years all the infrastructure projects will be completed in the 70-sq-km park. Work on an information technology industrial zone, an international scientific and technological zone and an export- oriented processing zone will also be stepped up, the mayor said. |
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