Reflection about Suzhou industrial park

China's modernisation drive gained momentum in the late 1980s, many Chinese delegations visited Singapore as its a nation that achieved notable economic success within 30 years of independence. The Chinese visitors were eager to learn modern management methods from Singapore and Singapore was also planning Economic Regionalization which focused on overseas investment. In 1992, the idea of developing a modern industrial township with Singapore experience was broached. 

Thus, after rounds of discussions, both governments decided to join hands in developing a modern industrial park in the east of Suzho, which is Suzhou Industrial Park. However, there was a scandal about Suzhou new district where the architectures are almost the same as SIP. Singapore has suffered a great loss but China did not suffer much loss. As the Suzhou city government had only a minority (35%) stake in the SIP, they had a major stake in SND, the city government largely ignored SIP and concentrated on promoting the SND instead. I think it's was quite a shock for Singapore. Since both governments have come to an agreement and yet it seems China did not fulfill it. Apparently, China is not the same as Singapore. The higher rank people might have ordered the lower rank people to do certain things but obeying or not will depend on them. Everything in China will be related to " Guan xi", relationships between each other. I think it was a good lesson for Singapore as we now know certain things is not the same as how it works in Singapore.

But now, after the scandal, the Singapore consortium lowered its stake to 35 percent, raising the Chinese consortium's stake to 65 percent from 35 percent. After making these changes, they earned their first profit in 2001. I think Singapore will be able to earn more profits from now on as we already learned our lesson from the scandal.