Singapore and China Deepen Collaboration in the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City

Singapore and China are deepening bilateral cooperation to enhance the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City into a distinctive city that is greener and more sustainable.

At the 13th Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City Joint Steering Council Meeting held on 29 December 2021, Minister for National Development and Minister-in-charge of Social Services Integration Desmond Lee announced that the National Parks Board of Singapore (NParks) and the Tianjin Eco-City Administrative Committee (ECAC) of China have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on a collaboration to enhance the Eco-City into a “Garden City”.

Minister Desmond Lee said, “Thirteen years ago, we set out on this collaboration with the vision of making the Eco-City a replicable model for sustainable development for cities. Over the years, it has successfully transformed from a barren land to a thriving eco-city. The Eco-City’s experience is now even more relevant given the global commitment to reduce carbon emissions, including our launch of the Singapore Green Plan 2030 and China’s plans to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. In the next phase of the Eco-City’s development, we will aim higher and elevate the Eco-City into a greener, smarter and more sustainable city.”

Under this bilateral cooperation, there are plans to further weave greenery into the built environment and bring nature even closer to the Eco-City’s residents and visitors. Programmes will be curated to promote awareness of the benefits of greenery and nurture community stewardship of the Eco-City’s natural environment. Under the MOU, both sides will jointly plan, design and develop features such as a Green Belt, a park connector network connecting the city’s green spaces, and pocket parks at street corners in the central area of the Eco-City.

Minister Desmond Lee said, “Singapore and China have been working together to push the boundaries of sustainability solutions through the Eco-City project. We have made good progress. At a time where there were no precedents or established standards for the management of polluted water bodies in China, we rehabilitated a former wastewater pond to become what we now call Jing Lake , right at the heart of the city. The Eco-City’s environmental rehabilitation initiatives have been a critical step to the development of “blue-green” networks of inter-connected water and greenery systems in the Eco-City. We now see residents enjoying beautiful and clean rivers, lush greenery and an extensive network of parks and open spaces. With this MOU, we will continue to push boundaries to further enhance the integration of nature with the built environment and create a distinctive Eco-City.”

Singapore and China are also expanding efforts in the smart and low carbon development of the Eco-City. In Keppel Land’s residential developments in the Eco-City, residents will enjoy the conveniences brought about by the smart technology applications in the estates and in residents’ homes to enhance public amenities, senior living and community services. For example, a digital volunteers platform will allow elderly or disabled residents to indicate their different needs, such as for repair works, hairdressing, or buying groceries. The platform will connect them with volunteers in the community. The platform also tracks and measures the impact of volunteer programmes in the Eco-City, which can be used to improve future community programmes. Keppel Land has also opened Seasons City - a smart and low-carbon mall featuring a cloud-based service platform for personalised shopping experience and smart parking functions. Energy saving technology such as energy-efficient lighting designs, chillers and ventilation systems, as well as photovoltaics and a solar hot water system to harness solar energy have been adopted in Seasons City. Keppel Land will be scaling up the application of smart technologies in a smart and low-carbon precinct at the Eco-City’s Northern District to benefit more residents.

These enhanced green and smart efforts will make the Eco-City an even more sustainable city. Singapore and China’s innovations and new ideas in the Eco-City will continue to be shared and scaled jointly. Since the launch of the Eco-City project, the Eco-City’s experience in water rehabilitation of the Jing Lake has been replicated in Xiong’An New Area’s Baiyangdian Lake Basin, Hunan Province Zhuzhou City’s Qingshuitang and Zhejiang Province’s Yuhuan City. In 2017, the Eco-City became a pilot programme for the International Standards Organisation (ISO) standards for the management and implementation of sustainable cities and communities. This year, Singapore and China shared the Eco-City’s experience with international audiences from cities along the Belt and Road, ASEAN and beyond at the Roundtable on Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) Green Development and the BRI International Green Development Coalition Policy Studies Release 2021, World Cities Summit, and at the 5th World Intelligence Congress in Tianjin. Both countries will continue to work together to realise our vision of the Eco-City as a green, smart and sustainable Eco-City in the next bound of development.

More information on the MOU and the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City project are in Annexes A and B respectively.