From May 4 to 12, a delegation from Wuxi City is scheduled to visit Singapore, South Korea and Japan, and carry out a series of economic, trade and cultural exchange activities.

The first stop in Singapore on May 5 featured a cooperation and development conference on urban internationalization, which saw the signing of 18 deals between the two sides.

Wuxi Mayor Zhao Jianjun said that the city will rely on the existing foundation of Wuxi-Singapore Industrial Park to accelerate the expansion and construction of Wuxi Singapore Science and Technology Innovation City. This development will give full play to the country's advantages in electronic information, biomedicine, precision engineering and modern service industry, and integrate Wuxi's manufacturing and market strengths in exploring mutually beneficial cooperation in industrial science and innovation.

Zhao also said Wuxi will further support more local enterprises to list in Singapore or set up regional headquarters, gather resources from and expand markets in countries along the Belt and Road Initiative as well as RCEP member countries. In addition, efforts will be made to strengthen people-to-people exchanges, expand cooperation in the fields of culture, education and tourism, and deepen exchanges in urban governance and low-carbon transformation.

In this meeting, strategic cooperation projects were signed between Wuxi Bureau of Commerce and Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry, between Wuxi Sunan International Airport Group and Changi Airports International, and between Wuxi Liangxi Cultural Tourism Development Group and Yanlord Land Group.

The meeting also witnessed the signing of 10 industrial cooperation projects, including the production and clearing center for temperature controlled food of Singapore Optima Integration Group, and five financial cooperation projects.

The innovation city project will involve a total investment of $5.85 billion, while investment into culture and tourism cooperation projects and industrial M&A projects will reach $1 billion and $500 million respectively.

Up to now, more than 700 Singaporean enterprises have made investment in Wuxi, with a cumulative investment of $16.4 billion.