Due to the invitation of Singapore's Minister for National Development, Tran Thanh Liem, Chairman of Provincial People's Committee, and a Binh Duongprovincial leaders’ delegation joined Vietnamese delegation (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Department of Foreign Affairs, leaders of Binh Duong, Hanoi, Quang Ngai, Hai Phong) and attended the World Cities’ Summit in Singapore.
Provincial leaders’ delegation attends the World Cities’ Summit 2018 in Singapore.
An inevitable trend
Under the program of the World Cities’ Summit (WCS 2018), Tran Thanh Liem, Chairman of Provincial People's Committee, attended the World Mayors' Forum. This was the main event of WCS 2018, held on 8 Jul at Marina Bay Sands Convention Center (Singapore). The forum had the participation of over 160 mayors, governors, local leaders of 125 countries and territories around the world (including major cities such as London - England; Tokyo - Japan, Singapore ...) and many leaders, representatives of organizations, corporations, and enterprises around the globe.
The World Cities Mayors’ Forum is a prestigious multilateral forum gathering leaders from all over the world. This was the initiative of Singapore Government, is held annually in various countries; and World Cities Summit is hosted once every two years in Singapore. This is an annual event organized by Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Department of Foreign Affairs) as a leading unit in organizing local delegations. The forum aims to create an important channel for mayors, governors, and leaders to discuss the overall solutions to innovatively building, designing cities, and to share practical experiences to connect, strengthen cooperation between cities in the world.
Under the theme "Worth-living and sustainable city: Acquiring the future through creativity and cooperation", at the forum, delegates and businesses discussed measures to enhance cooperation, innovative breakthroughs, adapt to new technologies to create the power for the development of the city; governance solutions that involve mobilizing alternative financial sources from the private sector for infrastructure investment to ensures that mayors are able to control the development of the city, thereby balancing public interests and short-term commercial gains.
Building a worth-living, smart and sustainable city is currently the target, the trend of each country. Although each country has different situations and conditions, they all orient towards innovation, creativity to build a real smart city. The Mayors’ Forum showed that Binh Duong was in the right direction in line with the trend of today developing world, and reflected the true vision of Binh Duong.
Joining hands for cooperation and development
In the context of deep international integration and the boom of 4.0 Revolution, the development of smart cities is the indispensable trend of all major cities in the world, including Binh Duong. Binh Duong is determined to accelerate the building process of a good smart city in international.
In recent years, in foreign affairs, Binh Duong has been attaching great importance to boost international cooperation in technology, technological and knowledge transfer with localities, enterprises, and partners in the world. Binh Duong has strengthened the branding and promotion of Binh Duong smart economic zone, and established the position of Binh Duong province, attracted FDI in advanced manufacturing industries with high added value.
During the World Cities’ Summit, especially the Mayors’ Forum, Tran Thanh Liem, Chairman of Binh Duong provincial People's Committee, discussed international cooperation relations and promotion with leaders of some big cities and countries. In the coming time, the two sides will visit each other to exchange, learn experiences, and enhance long-term cooperation for socio-economic development. In addition, the provincial delegation paid a visit to generally and detailed planned areas of Singapore, such as urban planning, industrial park planning, trade – service zone planning... , and sea-encroaching zones of Singapore, such as Singapore River and Marina Bay planning. After the visit, the delegation learned more ways that can be applied into construction and development of Binh Duong, preparation for Binh Duong smart city.
On this occasion, provincial leaders paid a courtesy visit to Vietnam's Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary in Singapore. At the meeting, the Ambassador affirmed the important contribution of Binh Duong in recent years had strengthened the relationship and cooperation between Vietnam and Singapore; At the same time, it contributed to the attraction of FDIs into Vietnam, boosting Vietnam's economy, with the prominence of VSIP's model industrial parks.
In addition, provincial leaders met and worked with Directors Board of Sembcorp Group to learn about Singapore's solar projects. The two sides exchanged views on upgrading industrial parks and the use of solar energy; energy saving helps to stabilize the power supply. The Directors Board of Sembcorp Group affirmed that industrial parks built in the future would be more modern and smarter.
From the first foundations built by trust, the relationship between Vietnam and Singapore, with the goodwill of cooperation, building modern industrial parks aimed at promoting the growth of Vietnam's economy as well as strengthening the global position of the region, Becamex IDC (Binh Duong) and SembCorp Industries (Singapore) made a joint venture to build the first international-quality industrial park model in Vietnam, established Vietnam - Singapore Industrial Park (VSIP). After 20 years, VSIP has been continuously developing and expanding throughout the country.
This is the result of the successful cooperation between Vietnam - Singapore in general, Becamex IDC (Binh Duong) and SembCorp in particular. At present, SembCorp Group has the first cooperation with Becamex IDC Group on research and use of solar energy - this is also one of the important elements in building smart city of Binh Duong.
Reported by Phuong Le – Translated by Ngoc Huynh
