Singaporean leaps at chance to build ‘knowledge city’

Updated: 2015-08-01 00:00

By Ben Yue(China Daily USA)

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Singaporean leaps at chance to build ‘knowledge city’

Chin Phei Chen, CEO of Sino-Singapore Guangzhou Knowledge City Investment and Development.

One does not turn down a job that fully utilizes the knowledge and skill set acquired in the course of a multifaceted career.

Chin Phei Chen, CEO of Sino-Singapore Guangzhou Knowledge City Investment and Development, knows this only too well. When the opportunity to take on his current position came up, he accepted it, albeit with some reluctance in the beginning.

As a Singaporean military veteran, former diplomat and executive of a state-owned property developer, the pieces of Chin’s past fell into place as he became head of the development of a smart city covering a total of 123 square kilometers in suburban Guangzhou.

The planned infrastructure by the joint venture company in the capital of Guangdong province is designed to lead South China’s economic transformation from manufacturing-driven to powered by knowledge-based industries such as biotechnology, information technology and creative sectors over the next two decades.

Chin, 54, said a combination of the management skills he gained in the army, the professional network he developed at the Singapore embassy in Beijing, as well as a knowledge of property development he gained while working with CapitaLand, a Singapore-based real estate company, have all stood him in good stead in his present job.

The GKC project was co-developed by Singbridge International, a company specializing in sustainable urban development, and Guangzhou Development District, and has attracted 127 companies with 20.3 billion yuan ($3.27 billion) in registered capital.

Since assuming the post as the second CEO of GKC in January 2013, Chin and his colleagues have visited the United States, Europe and Japan dozens of times to attract potential investors.

“We plan to build the startup zone first in the southern part in the next five years. The subway will be here in 2017,” Chin said as he points to a scale model of the planned urban infrastructure, mounted on a table in his office in east Guangzhou’s science city. “There will be a big change from 2017 to 2020.”

The science city itself is a successful industrial park developed by Guangzhou Development District in 1998. The development is populated with rich greenery and tall office buildings of world-famous technology companies.

From Chin’s window, the science city looks like a smaller and simpler version of the future GKC project, which is being built 20 kilometers north of his office location.

“In the beginning, I wasn’t sure if I should take the job,” Chin recalled. After all, he was doing well with his previous company and knew that the GKC job would not be easy. “But this project is just too important,” he said.

GKC is Singapore’s third big project in China, after the Suzhou Industrial Park and Tianjin Eco-city. It is also the first time that the two sides are using a market-oriented approach rather than a government-oriented model.

Chin explained that pursuing a market-oriented model could be difficult in the beginning, in terms of allocating resources. But once the project is on track, the market will help to increase its scale and it becomes easy to replicate, he said.

While the GKC project requires an enormous infusion of funds, technology, talent and project management expertise from Singapore, the city-state stands to benefit from it greatly, he said.

“Singapore is a small country. No matter how good we are, how many more things can we do? How much more talent can we attract?” Chin asked.

“We want our talent to have careers in the Asia-Pacific region, including China,” he added. If these people can bring their careers into China, there are at least two benefits — foreign exchange and more experienced talent, he said.

“Our predecessors gained experience by building Singapore from nothing to a developed country. Now the young generation also needs opportunities to develop themselves.”

He said it is important for Singaporeans to participate in China’s development, because the experience they gain in the process can be applied in other places.

He found GKC a challenging project since it involves a huge variety of work, such as getting agreements from Singaporean companies and ensuring policy support for their Chinese counterparts.

But for Chin, knowing that the knowledge city project is going to play a major role in South China’s economic transformation and that it will enhance Singapore’s future presence in China makes it all worthwhile.

A real estate management graduate of the National University of Singapore, Chin served in the Singapore Armed Forces for 26 years, reaching the rank of brigadier general.

Yet the bespectacled Chin, who spent more than seven years doing human resource-related work in the SAF, does not come across as the archetypal military official, as he looks more like a scholar.

He said being a commander is all about managing people, such as commanding soldiers to use their collective strength for a common goal and “finding common benefits among different groups”.

Before his retirement from the SAF, Chin served as chairman of the 2004 National Day Parade Executive Committee. Organizing big events such as this annual festival, when Singapore celebrates its independence, helped him establish contacts in various sectors, including corporate sponsors and businesspeople, and link up with social organizations and schools.

In 2005, he was appointed counselor at his city-state’s embassy in Beijing. Six years later he joined CapitaLand China as chief corporate officer.

During his stint in China, Chin gained professional contacts in the Ministry of Commerce, academic institutions including universities, and various companies from all over the world.

While working at the embassy in Beijing, Chin said he decided to stay in China. He has been impressed by the country’s fast track to growth and wants to see where it is going.

“I always try my best to do something,” he said, an indication of his aspiration to be part of China’s continued development in the years to come.

benyue@chinadaily.com.cn

 

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