China and Singapore are putting their heads together to build the world's first "ecocity" involving government-to-government cooperation in Tianjin, and hope it will be a model for sustainable development, local officials said here on Monday.
At the sixth China-Singapore Joint Steering Council Meeting for Tianjin Ecocity, to be held in Singapore on Tuesday morning, there will be an in-depth discussion to chart the way forward for the collaboration in the quest for sustainable urbanization and industrialization .
Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli and his Singaporean counterpart will be present.
Cui Guangzhi, deputy chief of the Tianjin Ecocity management committee, said that China and Singapore had met their initial environmental goals over the past five years.
By 2017, all infrastructure facilities and environmental programs will be complete, with a view to a population of 350,000, and districts with different functions including an industrial park will come online, said Cui.
When constructors broke ground on this project in September 2008, it was a wasteland of saline-alkali soil and water, recalled Jin Meizhu, chief of the Environmental Bureau of the Ecocity. Five years later the land has been levelled, 300 hectares have been reforested and treatment of a 40-year-old reservoir of industrial sewage is complete.
On a visit in September, Singapore's Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong suggested that the Eco-City could be the first in China to supply piped drinking water.
