TRADE AND CULTURAL TIES

    As Singapore prepares to mark two decades of ties with China next year, 20,000 Singaporeans are working in China and scores of joint ventures are underway.

    Singapore's senior cabinet minister and head of its Monetary Authority, Goh Chok Tong, discussed the project with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao during a visit to China last week.

    Among Singapore investors in China are offshore oil rig builder Keppel Corp, bank DBS, water treatment firm Hyflux, energy services provider Rotary Engineering and Raffles Education.

    Singapore developer CapitaLand, which aims to build 58 malls across 40 Chinese cities, said this month it planned to nearly double the value of its assets in China to $8 billion, or 45 percent of its overall assets.

    Singapore is proving to be a fertile recruiting ground for Mandarin-speaking middle and senior managers to run multinationals' operations in China where a lack of qualified managers has held back expansion plans by many foreign firms.

    MITIGATING RISK

    The financial crisis took a toll on Singapore's export dependent economy, reducing annual economic growth to just 1.1 percent in 2008, compared to around 8.2 percent between 2004-2007, and creating the highest unemployment rate in five years. Strengthening ties with China is seen as mitigating Singapore's risk.

    China is expected to become Singapore's largest single market for non-oil exports this year, overtaking the United States, says economist Irvin Seah at Singapore's top bank DBS Group.

    "We use the term 'China-ready,' meaning we will just have to grow with them," IE Singapore CEO Chong Lit Cheong, whose state agency promotes Singapore firms' investment abroad, told Reuters.

    "As far as China grows 7 to 8 percent a year in a foreseeable future, we will continue to have a bigger presence there."

    Singaporeans were among the first foreign investors in China after Deng Xiaoping adopted a market economy in 1978. Singapore's then prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, still in the cabinet, has visited China almost every year.

    After Deng's 1992 remarks to officials to "learn from the world and, especially Singapore, and do better than Singapore", thousands of Chinese officials started flooding the city-state for trips and university degree programmes in administration.

    Around three-quarters of Singapore's population are ethnic Chinese, giving many of its businessmen a cultural advantage versus the West, but the government is also trying to strengthen understanding of the Chinese culture and mindset.

    "Although we speak the same language, when we look at issues we are different," said IE Singapore's Chong. "The next step is how we see China in a Chinese perspective."

    Business China, an agency under Lee's patronage, is tasked to "groom 20,000 to 30,000 bilingual and bi-cultural Singaporeans with the ability to communicate effectively in the China market".

    Eugene Aw, a 22-year-old Singaporean, sees his professional future in China after studying for his degree in the UK and turning down a job with an American multinational firm.

    "I realised that Asia wouldn't wait for me. For now I intend to stay local (in Singapore) to gain exposure, contacts, and especially capital. And then if I can, I will spring into China."