So apparently my earlier posts on the Singapore and Tianjin partnership in the Tianjin ecozone were a bit mature. At first, I thought that as Singapore had successfully brought the Suzhou Singapore Investment Park to market, and the working relationships were developed at the highest levels of both governments, that would leave Singapore in better position when managing the Tianjin project.
Even as the park was being constructed, the Suzhou City government set up Suzhou New District Industrial Park (SND) right next to SIP. It was the exact replica of the Singapore model.
As the Suzhou City government had a majority stake in SND, it largely ignored the SIP and concentrated on promoting the SND instead.
After incurring losses of some US$90 million over 5 years, the Singapore consortium lowered its stake to 35 percent, raising the Chinese consortium’s stake to 65 percent from 35 percent and reducing the Singaporean share from a planned 70 sq.km. to just 8 sq.km (source: wikipedia)
Last time I was working with SIP I have to admit that I was under a different opinion of SIP and SND as it was clear to me that SND was not performing at the same level as SIP, and their people were in no way acting in the same manner. I had heard several reports from those in SND that services weren’t up at the same level of SIP, while at the same time SIP was looking for more land as they were running full.
Back to Tianjin, where officials are looking to used their model projects as bargaining chips for promotions, things are apparently not going to plan… and while their local officials look for the next rung on the ladder, some of the project’s components may prove difficult to implement (low income housing was mentioned).
In the post, the role of Singapore’s lead man who is described at a “key” person, but did not really provide much depth into what role/ responsibility this person ( ) has in the current problem.. but, they do open the door up for me to make a quick comment on how important it is for there to be people in the room who not only understand how to develop partnerships (partly by understanding what the other side will and will not implement over time, or how they will look to “leverage” the work into something else) and
how about the Nanjing ECO Island, is it part of SIP?
Comment by jd — December 30, 2009 @ 7:43 pm
[...] CGC – At first, I thought that as Singapore had successfully brought the Suzhou Singapore Investment Park to market, and the working relationships were developed at the highest levels of both governments, that would leave Singapore in better position when managing the Tianjin project. Little did I understand… [...]
Pingback by China News Roundup for January 1, 2009 « China Environmental Governance — January 1, 2010 @ 11:50 pm
jd,
Good question. I would say that if there is a reason to be more optimistic about Nanjing vs. Tianjin is that Suzhou and Nanjing are close in proximity and the relationships are likely to be stronger.
.. but one could easily counter argument.
R
Comment by Rich — January 2, 2010 @ 12:16 pm