Chinese President Hu Jintao at the hotel where he stays in Singapore meets with Singapore's Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong

On November 12, 2009, visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao met with Singapore's Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong in Singapore.

During the meeting, Hu spoke highly of Goh's important contribution toward advancing China-Singapore ties, saying their bilateral relationship has witnessed strong growth momentum and bilateral pragmatic cooperation has expanded to a variety of areas. Both countries have given full play to their advantages and innovation to achieve win-win results based on mutual benefits, Hu said. Hu described the Suzhou Industrial Park and Tianjin Eco-city projects as being the first in terms of both cooperation concept and cooperation model, saying the efforts have brought tangible benefits to both nations. He noted that both countries attach great importance to human resources exchange. The human resource training project, which has great influence, has injected new impetus to the healthy and steady development of their bilateral ties. Hu said the social foundation for the Sino-Singaporean friendship is "very solid" as both countries serve as inbound tourist source countries and outbound tourist destinations for each other and witness expanding exchanges of personnel, overseas students and youth. "As the next year marks the 20th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and Singapore, we will take the opportunity to review the development process of bilateral ties, summarize experience, inherit the past and forge ahead into the future and push bilateral friendly cooperation to a new level," the president said.

Noting that Singapore's participation in China's regional development has played an important part in bilateral cooperation, Hu said China supports cooperation with Singapore at local levels. He expressed hope that both countries will tap their complementary advantages and explore new areas and models of cooperation. China favors taking environmental protection and ecological construction as important parts of bilateral cooperation and is also ready to strengthen cooperation with Singapore in the Tianjin Eco-City project, Hu said. Both sides should provide more scientific evidence, do well in feasibility study, give priority to key areas, increase input, summarize and gradually disseminate experience. He described the setting up of the fourth public university in Singapore through Singapore-China-U.S. trilateral cooperation as a pioneering undertaking, saying that it is conducive to combining for development and complementing each other's advantages for mutual benefit and has won active support from the Chinese side. China takes a positive attitude toward bilateral cooperation in the financial sector and is willing to learn and draw on useful practices and experiences from Singapore, the president said. He also proposed that the two countries draw lessons and experience from the ongoing international financial crisis and explore ways of reforming the global financial system and strengthening monitoring of the international financial sector.

Goh said each time he was in China, he was deeply impressed by the country's achievements in economic and social development. China has not only made enormous achievements in material areas, but also made progress in social fields. The Chinese people are full of pride and confidence.

Agreeing with Hu, Goh said that Singapore and China enjoy sound development of bilateral ties thanks to their increasingly enhanced cooperation in various sectors. Bilateral cooperation has developed well in such four key sectors as high-technology, Chinese enterprises "going global," Singapore's participation in China's regional development and personal training, he said. Goh hoped China and Singapore would continue to look forward to the future on the existing basis and deepen cooperation in the flowing three aspects so as to make bilateral ties yield more positive outcomes. First, enhance bilateral cooperation on sustainable development, well build the Tianjin Eco-city project, accumulate and gradually disseminate useful experience. Second, carry out more cooperation at local levels, develop green economy and explore new cooperation models. Third, enhance cooperation between financial agencies of the two countries and carry out exchanges on the reform of the international financial system and development of financial sectors.

Dai Bingguo and other officials attended the meeting.