The Chinese city of Shenzhen has chosen Singapore to be its guiding light in environmental improvements, particularly public sanitation, Chinese and Hong Kong newspapers have reported.
A Singapore consultancy company had earlier spent two years working with the southern boomtown's environment and sanitation bureau and compiled a report on the challenges it faced and how they should be tackled.
Shenzhen has also sent officials to Singapore on study trips in its ambitious aim to turn itself into a garden city like the Republic, the paper added.
Last month, the city announced it would continue hiring a Singapore consultancy to help it in its public sanitation quest.
As Shenzhen will be celebrating next year its 30th anniversary as a special economic zone - a designation that helped it become a modern investment hub, it is now keener than ever to move closer to Singapore's environmental standards hoping to achieve a drastic change in image by then.
Most of the changes being carried out are refurbishment and upgrading works, such as repainting the facades of buildings along the thoroughfares and re-fashioning rooftops of high-rises, like what is often done in Singapore's housing estates.
Shenzhen also wants to learn from Singapore's experience in involving the private sector in sanitation and private sector in sanitation and garbage management, and how it put and runs a mechanised public sanitation system.
Guangdong's acting Mayor Mr Wang Rong decided that it should learn from Singapore.
Mr Wang was previously the party boss of Suzhou, where he was very much exposed to Singapore's ways of management in the Suzhou Industrial Park, in which the Republic holds sizeable stakes.
Explaining why Shenzhen did not choose neighbouring Hong Kong as its model, Mr Hu Zhen Hua, a spokesman for the city's urban management bureau, said: "Hong Kong is the efficiency expert, but Singapore is a unique garden city, and nobody would be better than Singapore for environmental improvement."
The Sunday Times (15 Nov 2009)
A Singapore consultancy company had earlier spent two years working with the southern boomtown's environment and sanitation bureau and compiled a report on the challenges it faced and how they should be tackled.
Shenzhen has also sent officials to Singapore on study trips in its ambitious aim to turn itself into a garden city like the Republic, the paper added.
Last month, the city announced it would continue hiring a Singapore consultancy to help it in its public sanitation quest.
As Shenzhen will be celebrating next year its 30th anniversary as a special economic zone - a designation that helped it become a modern investment hub, it is now keener than ever to move closer to Singapore's environmental standards hoping to achieve a drastic change in image by then.
Most of the changes being carried out are refurbishment and upgrading works, such as repainting the facades of buildings along the thoroughfares and re-fashioning rooftops of high-rises, like what is often done in Singapore's housing estates.
Shenzhen also wants to learn from Singapore's experience in involving the private sector in sanitation and private sector in sanitation and garbage management, and how it put and runs a mechanised public sanitation system.
Guangdong's acting Mayor Mr Wang Rong decided that it should learn from Singapore.
Mr Wang was previously the party boss of Suzhou, where he was very much exposed to Singapore's ways of management in the Suzhou Industrial Park, in which the Republic holds sizeable stakes.
Explaining why Shenzhen did not choose neighbouring Hong Kong as its model, Mr Hu Zhen Hua, a spokesman for the city's urban management bureau, said: "Hong Kong is the efficiency expert, but Singapore is a unique garden city, and nobody would be better than Singapore for environmental improvement."
The Sunday Times (15 Nov 2009)
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