SM Goh admits “hard lessons” were learnt from Suzhou Industrial Park
February 17th, 2010 | 
Author: Written by Our Correspondent
In a speech made to a business community in Singapore, Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong admitted that the Singapore government has learnt some “hard lessons” from the disastrous Suzhou Industrial Park joint venture between China and Singapore in the 1990s which saw the Singapore consortium losing millions of dollars.
SM Goh said it was not all “smooth sailing” for Singapore during the early years of doing business with China:
“Many of our businessmen, especially in the early years, have had to learn hard lessons on the importance of guanxi ( connections) and the challenge of finding reliable partners…..The Suzhou Industrial Park venture provided practical lessons to the Singapore Government and civil servants on ‘how best to have a productive relationship with China”, he added.
The China-Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP) was set up in 1994 at the outskirts of the Suzhou City in Jiangsu province with the help of Singapore funds and expertise. Singapore owned a 65% stake in the park.
Even as the park was being constructed, the Suzhou City government set up Suzhou New District Industrial Park (SND) right next to SIP. It was the exact replica of the Singapore model.
As the Suzhou City government had a majority stake in SND, it largely ignored the SIP and concentrated on promoting the SND instead.
After incurring losses of some US$90 million over 5 years, the Singapore consortium lowered its stake to 35 percent, raising the Chinese consortium’s stake to 65 percent from 35 percent and reducing the Singaporean share from a planned 70 sq.km. to just 8 sq.km
One year after Singapore lowered its stake, the park made its first profit of $3.8 million. Till today, it was not known how much money did Singapore lose exactly in its Suzhou misadventure.
Singapore’s latest foray into China, led by the Ministry of National Development to develop an eco-city in the northern metropolis of Tianjing appears to be turning into another Suzhou nightmare too.
A Singaporean, who has lived in China for over a decade and works for a company with close dealings with the Eco-City was quoted in an interview with the Straits Times as saying: “We may have another Suzhou Industrial Park tangle on our hands.”
One problem which continues to plague the project as in Suzhou is the difference in priorities between local officials and the Singaporeans.
Though the project has received strong support from the central government in Beijing, it is the provincial officials the Singapore team have to liaise with and many do not share the vision of their Singapore counter-parts.
To the Tianjin officials who are there only for a short stint, they are desperate to produce quick results which will earn them promotions elsewhere.
For example, while Singapore would like to have Housing Board-style public housing that will cater to low-income Chinese, Tianjin officials have been lukewarm to the idea because they worry over who will stump up the cash to subsidise the apartments.
A Tianjin official apparently told his Singaporean colleague:
“By the time the public housing project is completed, many of us Tianjin officials would likely be promoted elsewhere. Who would still be around to ensure that it is really the poor people who are relocated to this public housing estate?”
Singapore appears not to have learnt its previous lessons from Suzhou – that written contracts count for little in business transactions in China and local officials are often more interested in securing promotions for themselves than the welfare of the people.
Singapore’s economic model is based largely on a state-capitalist system where its major companies are mostly controlled by the state via a gigantic sovereign wealth fund Temasek Holdings owned by the Ministry of Finance.
In a recent speech made at the Civil Service College, US-based political economist Prof Huang Yasheng urged Singapore to “rethink” the “Temasek model” and warns that Singapore’s state management model has “milked this system for all it is worth.”
“The private sector is the best way to grow the economy. It has the most productive, most innovative and entrepreneurial culture. The state-owned enterprise system doesn’t give you that….You are already hitting the wall. Retaining this strategy could mean sacrificing future growth that is possible only through a bigger, more dynamic private sector,” he said.
Prof Huang felt that governments should not get involved in venture financing as they are using taxpayers’ monies and questions how the government can defend its decisions to invest in “failing individuals and projects”:
“Nine out of 10 investment projects fail. Does the government have such a high tolerance for risk? It’s taxpayers’ money, right? I don’t think, politically, it’s legitimate for the government to keep investing in failing individuals and failing projects. How do you defend these decisions?,” he asked.
As in the Suzhou debacle, there was never a need for the Singapore government to defend its (dubious) decisions since Temasek Holdings is a “commercial entity” and the unique Singapore system is built entirely on “trust” and nothing else, to quote the words of Finance Minister Tharman.
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Anecdotes collected from Chinese officials and private sector representatives over the years, especially in the case of Suzhou, demonstrated that all the scholars dispatched by Singapore were merely full of theory and displayed as usual the superiority complex in their dealings with Chinese counterparts. They had absolutely no real private sector experience like a normal entrepreneur would possess. There lies the main issue…
And due to its status of being government owned, such venture had difficulty to adapt to quick changes as dictated by ever changing business environment. Perhaps some real flexibility and a more humble attitude would surely help in any future ventures whether it be in China or elsewhere.
SM Goh Chok Tong: “Many of our businessmen, especially in the early years, have had to learn hard lessons on the importance of guanxi ( connections) and the challenge of finding reliable partners…..The Suzhou Industrial Park venture provided practical lessons to the Singapore Government and civil servants on ‘how best to have a productive relationship with China.”
“Guanxi” – “At its most basic, guanxi describes a personal connection between two people in which one is able to prevail upon another to perform a favor or service, or be prevailed upon” .…. Wikipedia
a. Guanxi is wrong. It is corruption – subtle or open. The Government started the Suzhou Industrial Park project on the wrong foot to begin with. So what do you expect the results to be???
b. And what are our clean and straight-jacketed civil servants doing corrupting the already corrupt Chinese?
c. What is the squeaky clean Singapore Government doing teaching and training our civil servant “guanxi” and corruption?
d. Maybe because of the “guanxi”, there is no transparency in the Suzhou Industrial Park project.
“Hard lessons” but nobody was accountable for the massive losses of tax dollars and no one was fired.
Singaporeans are still learning ‘hard lessons’ daily from old farts who don’t value add and yet earn millions of dollars per year.
suzhou is not the first hard lesson…the beijing world trade centre building was the first project that made the singapore contractor burnt their pants down!!
It is definitely not easy to do business in a foreign country.
The Chinese have no concept of intellectual property. Everybody copies everybody else. Also the provincial governments have to raise revenue by whatever means for their own budgets because taxes go to the central government, so they only pay lip-service to national policies and directives. It’s naive to think that once we cozy up to their leadership in Beijing the big bucks will start rolling in…
hard lessons for who?
they are still staying in their bungalows and driving their big cars!!!!
We tax payers are the eventual losers, goh and his merry men with their million dollars salaries seem not to have learnt lessons from the Suzhou and making the same mistake in Tianjin, when will we ever learn that the Chinese are no foolish businessmen and the Singapore government should explain all this debacles in their china investments. Correct me if I’m wrong, there are no Singapore government investments that had succeeded in china!
It may not be easy to do business in china or anywhere else. Big mistakes and losses can be made
But what is most important is it must be easy to win 98% seats in elections.
Once this is achieved, there will be 2nd, 3rd or more chances to make mistakes or losses of whatever kind.
Quote: Singapore’s economic model is based largely on a state-capitalist system where its major companies are mostly controlled by the state via a gigantic sovereign wealth fund Temasek Holdings owned by the Ministry of Finance.
TR – can find out who owns the MOF since they own TH and GIC. This is VERY VERY IMPORTANT.
lol what is all these noise about china.
china sucks. it is just like north korea , the only difference is they have food to eat.
doing business in china is suicide. the money hungry assholes there will gobble up all your money and play you out anyway they can.
the police are gangster themselves. they have connections with the triads. my employer, a “top” university in china, withheld my pay and the police told me to go fly a kite because they are in cahoots.
the triads pay money to the police for protection. the judicial system in china is also messed up.
only idiots fall for the china craze
The Singapore gahmen are STUPID IDIOTS!
To admit the“hard lessons” from the disastrous Suzhou Industrial Park, which saw the Singapore consortium losing millions of dollars.
And to built yet another @ Tianjin.
The Singapore gahmen are a laughing stock in the eyes of the world.
What HYPOCRISY!
They are China’s puppets.
Hard lessons at the expense of the people, as usual.
No apologies, no heads will roll, cushy jobs retained and off they skip merrily along to the next colossal fuck-up.
Remember the $1b which Temasek lost in New York? Last I checked, Ho Ching and her scholar lieutenants are still in charge.
1. I am speaking on behalf of oldest man. As we the pappy ONLY open doors for you ordinary Singaporeans to venture.
2. Since we as the pappy papayas really don’t know too what the papayas in that foreign land tastes like too you know!!!
3. And so, WE the papayas oso didn’t know that guanxi or connections ARE important then lah!!! Also many other things like their different laws, cultures, lingo, habits, eating habits, social habits, expectations of sorts, etc have always been FAr TOO Cheem (Deep) for us too leh!!!
4. And oso since we had to act fast lah… we didn’t have the time to think of such things being so BUSY Leh … counting our monies… let alone expect us to go to this and that other country to CHECK THEM OUT FIRST LeH!!! And Walau… eating so much papayas oso mean going to toilet so often Mah! How got time to think Smart and Ahead LaH!!!
5. And so now I tell you this truth in my and our way to let you “lesser-mortals” Singaporeans know that WE ARE human too and so ERR naturally like you HaW!!! Even though we’re high-mortals… WE are still mortals right!!! Just keep on BELIEVING and TRUSTING us pappy and you will always oso have plenty of papayas to eat and be so busy that… you WON’T have The Time TOO like us… And so no time to complain about OUR MANY FAILURES and GOOFS and SHORTFALLS…
6. And the new Fast & furious installation of Optical Fiber cables will give you GIGA Speed internet “Connections” for “Guanxi” at home too. So you see… some of you AT LEAST can then work at home TOO… TO BE “CHEAPER – BETTER – FASTER” FOR EVEN MORE LONGER HOURS In The Confort of your homes. It IS to UP your Slacking and STILL Slacking Productivity you see. And then when you have BeCome BETTER – FASTER – and so CHEAPER too… We can pay us TOP pappies and companies’ TOP-TALENTS in our ministeries, agencies, etc even more you see. DON’T WE HAVE GOOD POLICIES FOR OURS AND YOUR GOOD!!!…
7. Fear not Brutus as Caesar IS with you. Even though one”Brutus” murder one Caesar… We are different Caesars and you WILL ALWAYS HAVE LOTS OF… papayas of course to eat for keeping you all healthy wealthy and wise to vote for us forever more!!!
8. So last but the least NOR the last of these ERRING things… We WILL at THE MOST opportune political time and timing… ALWAYS EXPLAIN to you lesser Singaporeans HOW And WHY WE OSO Failed HERE And THERE and Anywhere in time to come!!!
9. Sincerely hope that you understand and accept that WE ARe and always BE doing our level best haw!!!
10. Until then… take heart and don’t forget that papayas ARE BEST For YOUR Health yah! Since it is a Given and a ‘Natural’ thing too!!! SLEEP WELL as ‘god’ is with you and ‘watching-over’ you!!!
BRAVO Kenneth Lin!!! Whatever your age and background!!!
SM Goh admits “hard lessons” were learnt from Suzhou Industrial Park
What’s the point?
What’s the BIG deal about losing millions when our TH and GIC are losing our money by the tens of billions…
Hard or soft lesson….who cares ???!!!
So long every year personal income is one to three millions…..
Lose Lose lor….no problem because “Ah Gong Money” .
Anyway No Accountability.
Only increase in yearly salary
Hard lessons were learnt? What lessons? Since when did the Chinese teach Elites the likes of you,GCT,lessons on building towmships? You all,the so called first class elites,went in to Suzhou with your eyes and ears wide open.
Didn’t you? You all went in to TEACH the Chinese how to suck eggs, but in the end,you all have to swallow all the eggs,husks and all!!
In the early years,when questioned about the state of affairs of the SIP,we were all given very positive and nice figures so as to hoodwink the taxpayers that everything was smooth going in the eastern front!!
It was towards the end that the truth was leaked out that SIP was bleeding non-stop. The elites who were put in-charge
were changed not less than 4 times!! Even complaints by our old forecaster to the then President,Mr. Zhang was of no avail!
The SIP was able to turn around from red to black was when
the shares % was swapped ie. 65% to 35% in favour of the Chinese!!
Now that the SIP is making a profit they boast to the whole wide world! What about the accumulated losses since construction started? Guess we will never know!!
After the storm had quiet down,we want to teach the Chinese how to build a eco-city!!! And of all people they sent you know who to spear-head the venture?? Yes, you are right,they send our mighty Ma Poor Tan!!!
Is the eco-city thingy going to be another Suzhou like hot potato? Well, you draw your own conclusion!!
Public money is to be used for our citizens only. Why is it being thrown away in a totally foreign place like Suzhou or Tianjin? It makes our ministers look like tycoons of the Li Ka Shing ilk; all with our money!!!
What megalomaniacs do we have running this country?
We have world class government. The so called “best in the world”.
What lesson, hard or soft does it really matter, millions is not big deal compared to our GIC & TH losing billions..
We must as well sell the whole SIP back to China.
Lets have a look at our wonderful project.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPUcik8zVao&feature=PlayList&p=9621176793B67401&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=11
this is nothing.
As if 100 million is a big loss?
Compare this with what TH/GIC lost in the recent bank investments. They lost more than the entire wealth of Ng Teng Fong.
in less than six months.
This China crap is a detractor.
Are “guanxi” and “finding reliable partners” the only lessons to be drawn? What abt the wrong business model for kickers? The fact that the Chinese started SND on first day to compete with SIP already exposed the PAP govt leaders were truly green horns and lambs led to slaughter. So to me the lesson shld be “don’t trust the Chinese too much”. They are into the copycat business. Second lesson also is “just because top leaders agreed, it doesnt mean bottom rungs are also in aggreement”. This shows too much hands off attitude and dependence on subords – exactly the PAP govt’s Achilles heel.
The only ”hard lessons” Singaporeans by and large have learnt is this – this self-serving party and incumbent govt has squandered billions of tax payers’ money and nobody has been held responsible or made accountable for this gross misjudgements and indiscretions.
If this has happened common sense would show that off late a few billions have been lost and yet they (PAP) is going about like it is alright.
Well, if that were to be the case, I think it is perfectly alright to kick this party and incumbent govt out.
The billions lost could have been put to ‘proper’ use to benefit the citizens and the nation.
Singapreans, wake up lar – they are getting away all these nonsense cos it is a one-party rule and IF ONE WERE TO think of OMBUDSMEN, TRANSPARENCY N ACCOUNTABILITY – NONE, ZILCH!
Wait wait wait….are you saying that the PRC officials are the one seeking promotion at the expense of the people? *Look all over SGP* i thought i know of a place whereby some people seek pay at the expense of the people…pot calling the kettle black
and to SM Goh, I have some great quotes for you:
“The mistakes of the fool are known to the world, but not to himself. The mistakes of the wise man are known to himself, but not to the world.” and
“The fool thinks himself to be wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool. ” and how about “A fool flatters himself, a wise man flatters the fool. ”
and lastly, this is the most suitable “Wise men learn by other men’s mistakes, fools by their own.”
The jailing of THAT influential Malaysian guy call TAN KOON SWAN Remember? Was it 3 or 5 yrs for that debacle over Orchard Hotel in Orchard Boulevard? He was close to Mahathir then PM of Malaysia. He also had an equally influential, smart and rich girlfriend and lover called PENNY. Heard it was them who when to the Suzhou and State Authorities and suggested a better location further down river nearer to the sea!!! Oldest man incumbent IS SMART??? LOLL and your toes too!!!
this is retribution for the singapore gahmen’s locking up of the alleged commies during the 60s with operation coldstore and 80s with operation spectrum
china is a terrible place to do business. they eat u up alive. statistics show that 9 out of 10 businesses fail. in china, it is more like 9.9 out of 10.
there is nothing you can count on. police are corrupted. govt is communist and despotic. people are shrewd and money hungry. the air is terrible. people yell all the time like crazy people. their behaviour is unbelievable.
only good point is that wages are cheap. but you might as well go to other parts of the world if you are looking for cheap wages.
Charles on Wed, 17th Feb 2010 3:28 pm
SM Goh admits “hard lessons” were learnt from Suzhou Industrial Park
What’s the point?
It means Singaporeans must not be complacent.:-)
I love doing business in China.
Be sincere but not stupid.
Business model must be right. Anything else is bullshit.
They went into Suzhou thinking they can behave like little tyrants, exactly how they behave in Sillypore and found out that little tyrants are no where near BIG GIGANTIC tyrants.
The then SM Lee K Y rush and flew to China to meet Mr Jiang ZeMin. SM Lee was asked to go Beijing, But Mr Jiang was in SiChuan and then Wuhan (where the china communist propaganda HQ is) and left our beloved SM Lee waiting for 8 days to no avail. SM Lee flew back to Sillypore and the transfer of Shares was completed, A success was reported in MSMs and everything else swept in the carpet.
This is the type of people Singaporeans love to vote in, You know why? Coz Singaporeans love being screwed up the ass HARD.
ooops sorry hor, Lessons were not learnt from Suzhou.
THe NTUC then set up 12 Megastores (Hypermarts) and imported 300 taxis (e&oe might be 500) in the province of Liaoning. Proclaiming it a huge success.
After 3yrs there is no more Megastore run by NTUC coz all had to be sold away due to NO BUSINESS!!!???
300 taxis were missing after 6 months. So no business too.
And they call themselves Elites of the ELITE!
When it comes to the real world, NONE of the current PAP Ministers AND their offsprings and Cronies can survive.
But what to do, Singaporeans just love being suckered coz singaporeans are SUCKERS!! (except those who voted for opposition, ANY opposition)
Errr my comments went missing?
Lessons were NOT learnt!!!
After Zuhou, NTUC set up 12 MEgastores (hypermarts) and a taxi unit (300 cars) in the province of Liaoning (E&OE might be 500).
All the megastores have been sold off to private business man at a huge LOSS and all the taxis went missing after 6 months of operation.
This is the type of Elites we have, They call themselves elites of the elites.
None of the PAP and yPAP people and their cronies can survive in a REAL world.
And going into first rate cities, those who entertain in KTVs will know one favourite saying if they know you are singaporeans. they say. 新加坡人 ＝ 苯！
The amount of money thrown into china, who can blame these chinese. And you know what hurts most?? THEY ARE RIGHT
WE allow PAP to screw us again n again, yet people continue to vote for them again and again. So if that is not stupid.. what is??
Heard of this? China signs contract which they treat it as “framework agreement” which were NOT binding agreement FOR THE CHINESE in China.
It is only a binding agreement if …” contract needs is signed by the president at the right level,” which only the Chinese party knows BEFORE SIGNING THE AGREEMENT. The foreigner won’t know. If it suits them, the President at the “right level” will sign, if not, the contract is NOT BINDING ON THEM never mind the arduous agreement negotiated by the foreigners.
A shifting goal post at their whims and fancy!!
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/in-depth/tell-china-we-deal-from-different-deck/story-e6frgah6-1225830279397
The Chinese screwed up Fortescue Metals and Clive Palmer in huge contracts.
If one look at their contract law – there is no mention of the word ‘framework agreement”
http://www.novexcn.com/contract_law_99.html
So the “Framework Agreement” a a fictional ghost of Chinese invention created OUTSIDE THEIR OWN CONTRACT LAW APPLICATION to screw unwary foreigners.
This 14 years after they screwed Singapore in Suzhou Park. Old unscrupulous habits and dishonesty die hard – if it ever will. That is why their business reputation is so bad in so many foreign countries.
Why our Government so niave of learning from past mistakes in trusting Chinese when their habits of screwing ALL foreigners is in almost every day business news read????
It beats the sanity of my rational thoughts.
Again, I see plain PAP bashing here.
THe issue is whether you and I, or Low Thia Khiang or Chiam See TOng for that matter, would have done better. SIP was an early 90s project. The Chinese environment then was very different. Maybe you are right that we (the Sg govt aka PAP-led govt) had an inadequate plan then. We misread the ground. We did things the way we are used to doing things in Sg. And yes, we got “screwed”.
An entrepreneur and a civil servant are essentially 2 mutually exclusive creatures. Being a highly educated individual may perhaps hinder more than help in business. Entreprenuers need a bit of gangster streak in them, seizing the day and sometimes, even muddy the water so that white is not white but grey.
Even if we had an alternative govt in 1994, led by CST or the infamous Ling HD – the outcome would not have been very different. These people are not entrepreneurs!
The issue is thus not approtioning blame to the PAP-led govt of 1994. The issue is we were inexperienced in dealing with the Chinese. If we make the same mistakes in Tianjin as what we did in SIP, then some people ought to jump off Duxton Plain. But the verdict is still not out on Tianjin.
Heard of this? China signs contract which they treat it as “framework agreement” which were NOT binding agreement FOR THE CHINESE in China.
It is only a binding agreement if …” contract needs is signed by the president at the right level,” which only the Chinese party knows BEFORE SIGNING THE AGREEMENT. The foreigner won’t know. If it suits them, the President at the “right level” will sign, if not, the contract is NOT BINDING ON THEM never mind the arduous agreement negotiated by the foreigners.
A shifting goal post at their whims and fancy!!
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/in-depth/tell-china-we-deal-from-different-deck/story-e6frgah6-1225830279397
The Chinese screwed up Fortescue Metals and Clive Palmer in huge contracts.
If one look at their contract law – there is no mention of the word ‘framework agreement”
http://www.novexcn.com/contract_law_99.html
So the “Framework Agreement” a a fictional ghost of Chinese invention created OUTSIDE THEIR OWN CONTRACT LAW APPLICATION to screw unwary foreigners.
This 14 years after they screwed Singapore in Suzhou Park. Old unscrupulous habits and dishonesty die hard – if it ever will.
Why our Government so niave of learning from past mistakes in trusting Chinese when their habits of screwing ALL foreigners is in almost every day business news read????
It beats the sanity of my rational thoughts.
My professor in Chinese history told the class in 1990s that the Suzhou project was doomed to fail even before it happened because historically, chinese provincial govts have their own priorities over the national govt. he told the class that there was little the beijing govt could do to enforce the contract if the local govt does not want to. he said that anyone with knowledge of chinese social and political history would be able to tell LKY that he needed to make it worthwhile to the SZ govt to do this and not depend on teh written contract of the Beijing govt. SG holding 65% shares was a sure recipe for disaster; the perceived superiority of the singaporean contribution and therefore control was the exact opposite of what mattered to the chinese.
point he was trying to make: there are enough academics who could have pointed the govt in the right direction but the govt did not care to ask or consult the true experts. my professor is an internationally recognised authority on chinese history.
it is partly teh govt being inexperienced dealing with teh chinese as stated in the previous post but it is as well as what my Prof said: the govt did not bother to ask or to listen to people who had the experience.
Talking “BIG” at home but badly beaten away like a mice.
Singaporeans cannot accept any explanation after having having waited for so long ….i.e.16 years later.
An “INQUIRY” must be conducted.
MM is a lawyer by professional, so he should take them to court and sue them what? Singaporeans cannot accept it.
Another FAILED project.
Why so many?
They keep throwing good money away so easily….bloody idiots!
//■pro-singapore on Wed, 17th Feb 2010 11:29 pm
“Again, I see plain PAP bashing here”
A loss is a loss.
Please, do not make any assumption that since the PAP-led project failed in SIP others will fail too.
Why didn’t you make comparison of PAP-led failed project in Suzhou to Li Ka-Shing’s investment instead?
QUOTE:”Even if we had an alternative govt in 1994, led by CST or the infamous Ling HD – the outcome would not have been very different. These people are not entrepreneurs!” UNQUOTE.
In Singapore, Can others say, “we don’t go to Suzhou at all.” “We are staying away from Suzhou but instead we invest at home to help Singaporeans.”…..its my fair view.
Sometimes, doing nothing is better than forcing yourself into doing something.
//pro-singapore on Wed, 17th Feb 2010 11:29 pm
Some people trying to be too “CLEVER” in China, thats why they lost a lot of money in Suzhou…and badly bruised.
If they ve acted “STUPID”, they would have save Singaporeans taxpayers / our Reserves billions of $$$ instead.
The true is that our Singapore Govt lost and was badly beaten.
16 years later, SM Goh brought up the subject on SIP loss has shown that the govt is presently still feeling the followings:
1)Still having difficulties in swallowing that SIP Bitter pill.
2)Still causing embarrassment and indigestion among themselves.
3)Unable to simply put everything to rest.
4)To satify some Singaporeans enquiries.
5)Trying to clear the air as the wind of change is about to come.
Bad luck in our PAP-led Temasek and GIC investments:
- SIP loss
- Merrill Lynch, citi,and UBS loss
- abc learning Australia loss, and Thai shin corp loss
- stuyvesant town residential in NY loss
- Lehman mini-bond loss by CDC / HDB town council.
Camparing above to Goldman Sachs recent sale of Shanghai Garden Plaza, Shanghai which they bought for US$190 million in end-2007 and just sold for US$328 million in Feb 2010 – making a profit of 72.6% in 2 years.
Can our govt try her LUCK again?
@■pro-singapore on Wed, 17th Feb 2010 11:29 pm
“Again, I see plain PAP bashing here.
THe issue is whether you and I, or Low Thia Khiang or Chiam See TOng for that matter, would have done better.”…in SIP?
YES! DO NOTHING.
Cambridge, Oxford and Harvard doesn’t teach their students…
How to make money?
“Why didn’t you make comparison of PAP-led failed project in Suzhou to Li Ka-Shing’s investment instead?”
Why compare with Li Ka Shing ? Li Ka Shing most importantly use his own money to gamble and learn from it, and that is why he is so successful whereas our fools are using tax-money to gamble and use their media and hegemony to cover-up and protect them with their failure, so how can our fools ever learn ?
If those clowns want to show off,
then use their own farting money to throw dice not tax-money.
Bird Talk – AS I said, our civil servants are not entrepreneurs. They don;t think like one, nor act like one. Li Ka Shing is a businessman. The DNA is already primed for business.
Sooner or later, we had to engage China, if not in Suzhou, then perhaps somewhere else. It is about foreign policy and gaining diplomatic space. Being a small country, we need friends, and we need friends in the right places. We are already cosy with USA, who else should we be friends with? Everything we do, we do for a purpose. So not going into CHina is not an option.
But I do agree we can do more for our local SIngaporeans, especially those in need.
It is silly for Singaporean ministries to think that the same logic can be applied to China. China officials move from post to post too fast to have any lasting effect.
Again, guanxi and politics.
At least Singapore officials have more staying power to see through their plans, if that is a good thing.
jeremy on Thu, 18th Feb 2010 12:55 am
“…. the govt did not bother to ask or to listen to people who had the experience…”
You put the correct perspective but actually is worse than that of this Government’s failure.
They arrogantly NEVER tried small projects first to test the Chinese business integrity FIRST before dipping their head into a BIG pile of sh@t. Pepsi-cola which did global business, HAD NO BAD REPUTATION ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD, ran into insurmountable difficulties of contract violations. It was public news. There are other bitter stories in print media. Yet our Government behaves like..”OH..WE KNOW IT ALL. WE ARE CHINESE, THE ANGLOS JUST DON’T GET IT!!”
OUR GOVERNMENT JUST NOT ONLY UNINFORMED OF REALITIES, THEY JUST DON’T LISTEN TO ANYONE – that is HOW AUTOCRATS WORK, my way or your head on my chopping block. Does that apply OUTSIDE the shores of this little red dot???. AND THE SAME ARROGANT FALSE SUPERIORITY COMPLEX IS PERSISTING STUBBORNLY INCAPABLE OF CORRECTION AND TURNAROUND.
The Chinese depends on Australia, Brazil etc for iron-ore supply – THEY STILL SCREWED FORTESCUE METAL.
http://www.smh.com.au/business/china-fools-asic–as-well-20091224-le86.html
The need badly Australian supply of energy from the US$60 billion Gorgon project and the US$50 billion (approximately) metallurgical coal contract, they are still screwing Clive Palmer, Australia’s mining magnet. Chinese are so recklessly ruthless of sh@tting in their rice bowl when it comes to taking business to the brink of impossiility.
They even arrested and putting on trial Australia’s Shanghai-born negotiator of Rio Tinto, Stern Hu and 3 of their own kind in MONKEY SHOW TRIAL COMING UP.
The charges ARE COMICAL OF PUBLIC ENTERTAINMENT.
Stern Hu is accused of receiving BRIBES FOR RECEIVING CHINESE STATE SECRETS!!! The “rational process” is one give bribes in exchange for information from the opposing party in corruption. In Stern Hu’s case, the official charge is HE BRIBED CHINESE TO GIVE CHINESE INFORMATION – HOW DIABOLICAL OF LOGIC!!!
It seems in Chinese law application, the question of factual truth DOES NOT MATTER even if it is intuitively counter-logical, IT WILL BE FITTING LAW TO INCOHERENT AND ILLOGICAL FACTS TO CONVICT THE ACCUSED. The Chinese wants “face” like all mafia dogs. End justify all means – truth and logic have no place in pre-destined outcome.
WHAT DO YOU THINK KEVIN RUDD OF AUSTRALIA THINK WHEN HIS EMBASSY IN BEIJING WERE CONVEYED OF THE LEGAL CHARGE AGAINST STERN HU AFTER MONTHS OF INVESTIGATION IT WILL BE??? KEVIN RUDD PROBABLY CAME TO THE CONCLUSION AS MANY OF US THAT THE LAW INSIDE CHINA IS TRULY A SHIT-SMELLY ARSE “FARKING-THE-FART” PRACTICE as always been INSIDE CHINA as in their history. The Emperor of no clothes always cut of the head first and ask question later, if it ever comes to that reflection.
The official charge read as ridiculous as this
“The Xinhua statement last night may place Rio Tinto in an uncomfortable spotlight by accusing Mr Hu and his colleagues of “exploiting their positions to seek gain for others” – although the report did not detail who “others” refers to.
The language may imply the employees sought benefits for the company as well as themselves.
The Xinhua report cited the prosecutor as saying: ”The accused four … exploited their positions to seek gain for others, and numerous times either sought or illegally accepted huge amounts of money from a number of Chinese steel firms; and many times they used … improper means to obtain commercial secrets from Chinese steel firms, causing serious consequences for the firms.”
http://www.theage.com.au/business/china-steps-up-stern-hu-bribe-case-20100211-nsnt.html
Does our Government sit up and notice how ruthless the Chinese are – some 30 years after the late Deng’s famous any color of the cat that catches the mice is what that only matters. ENDS JUSTIFY ALL MEANS.
IS THERE ANY FURTHER SURPRISE WAITING OUR INVESTMENTS IN TIANJIN ECO-PARK AND NANJING?
No prize for guessing it correctly.
We have NOT learn and our stupid arrogance will always deny us any learning from bad experiences. Too many dumb frogs taken to see the Great Wall of China got mesmerised by shame history that it was in fact a barbaric relic of no culture. Power and money count for everything – right up TO THIS DAY.
Majulah Singapura.
How about lessons learnt from Temasek/GIC losses ?
How come nobody including the Prime Minister has ever dared to touch on this issue and elaborate on the losses ?
And not a single word from our President either who is supposed to jaga the monies ? We might as well appoint a dog to be in-charge. All those qualifications for a President nominee to have experience of managing a big corporation mean nothing at all if the President is not required to use his expertise. So LKY has conned us again regarding this important aspect of a President ?
And one very obvious lesson they have not learnt from the Temasek/GIC losses is to appoint your wife or father who does not have the financial expertise to be in charge of such a big investment corporation – it takes a fool to appoint another fool.
jeremy on Thu, 18th Feb 2010 12:55 am
“…. the govt did not bother to ask or to listen to people who had the experience…”
You put the correct perspective but actually is worse than that of this Government’s failure.
They arrogantly NEVER tried small projects first to test the Chinese business integrity FIRST before dipping their head into a BIG pile of sh@t. Pepsi-cola which did global business, HAD NO BAD REPUTATION ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD, ran into insurmountable difficulties of contract violations. It was public news. There are other bitter stories in print media. Yet our Government behaves like..”OH..WE KNOW IT ALL. WE ARE CHINESE, THE ANGLOS JUST DON’T GET IT!!”
OUR GOVERNMENT JUST NOT ONLY UNINFORMED OF REALITIES, THEY JUST DON’T LISTEN TO ANYONE – that is HOW AUTOCRATS WORK, my way or your head on my chopping block. Does that apply OUTSIDE the shores of this little red dot???. AND THE SAME ARROGANT FALSE SUPERIORITY COMPLEX IS PERSISTING STUBBORNLY INCAPABLE OF CORRECTION AND TURNAROUND.
The Chinese depends on Australia, Brazil etc for iron-ore supply – THEY STILL SCREWED FORTESCUE METAL.
http://www.smh.com.au/business/china-fools-asic–as-well-20091224-le86.html
The need badly Australian supply of energy from the US$60 billion Gorgon project and the US$50 billion (approximately) metallurgical coal contract, they are still screwing Clive Palmer, Australia’s mining magnet. Chinese are so recklessly ruthless of sh@tting in their rice bowl when it comes to taking business to the brink of impossiility.
They even arrested and putting on trial Australia’s Shanghai-born negotiator of Rio Tinto, Stern Hu and 3 of their own kind in MONKEY SHOW TRIAL COMING UP.
The charges ARE COMICAL OF PUBLIC ENTERTAINMENT.
Stern Hu is accused of receiving BRIBES FOR RECEIVING CHINESE STATE SECRETS!!! The “rational process” is one give bribes in exchange for information from the opposing party in corruption. In Stern Hu’s case, the official charge is HE BRIBED CHINESE TO GIVE CHINESE INFORMATION – HOW DIABOLICAL OF LOGIC!!!
It seems in Chinese law application, the question of factual truth DOES NOT MATTER even if it is intuitively counter-logical, IT WILL BE FITTING LAW TO INCOHERENT AND ILLOGICAL FACTS TO CONVICT THE ACCUSED. The Chinese wants “face” like all mafia dogs. End justify all means – truth and logic have no place in pre-destined outcome.
WHAT DO YOU THINK KEVIN RUDD OF AUSTRALIA THINK WHEN HIS EMBASSY IN BEIJING WERE CONVEYED OF THE LEGAL CHARGE AGAINST STERN HU AFTER MONTHS OF INVESTIGATION IT WILL BE??? KEVIN RUDD PROBABLY CAME TO THE CONCLUSION AS MANY OF US THAT THE LAW INSIDE CHINA IS TRULY A SHIT-SMELLY ARSE “FARKING-THE-FART” PRACTICE as always been INSIDE CHINA as in their history. The Emperor of no clothes always cut of the head first and ask question later, if it ever comes to that reflection.
The official charge read as ridiculous as this
“The Xinhua statement last night may place Rio Tinto in an uncomfortable spotlight by accusing Mr Hu and his colleagues of “exploiting their positions to seek gain for others” – although the report did not detail who “others” refers to.
The language may imply the employees sought benefits for the company as well as themselves.
The Xinhua report cited the prosecutor as saying: ”The accused four … exploited their positions to seek gain for others, and numerous times either sought or illegally accepted huge amounts of money from a number of Chinese steel firms; and many times they used … improper means to obtain commercial secrets from Chinese steel firms, causing serious consequences for the firms.”
http://www.theage.com.au/business/china-steps-up-stern-hu-bribe-case-20100211-nsnt.html
Does our Government sit up and notice how ruthless the Chinese are – some 30 years after the late Deng’s famous any color of the cat that catches the mice is what that only matters. ENDS JUSTIFY ALL MEANS.
IS THERE ANY FURTHER SURPRISE WAITING OUR INVESTMENTS IN TIANJIN ECO-PARK AND NANJING?
No prize for guessing it correctly.
We have NOT learn and our stupid arrogance will always deny us any learning from bad experiences. Too many dumb frogs taken to see the Great Wall of China got mesmerised by shame history that it was in fact a barbaric relic of no culture. Power and money count for everything.
Just to put the records in correct perspective, the Suzhou municipal government started the SND earlier than the CSIP, as the CSIP’s management (equivalent to million-dollar nerds of the miw) aspires to build an industrial park duplicating, imaging and modeling after Jurong Industrial Estate from stretch hence, “IT” choose to start off the CSIP on a new slate of farm land with resettlement of peasants and reclamation of paddy field, because of its defiant nature, this has created certain unhappiness within the Suzhou residential communities as “flat” and fertilize farm land for agriculture are really scare in densely populated China!
In short, CSIP is set up stupidly to compete with SND and, not the other way round! As it is run by a bunch of idiotic cum non-committed million-dollar nerds of the “gang” of the miw!
How come our officials who were there RIGHT FROM THE BEGINNING NOT aware of the competitive park next door and stop all funding development when the losses would have been minimal?
Didn’t the “ribbon-cutters” aware of the what is going on in that ground-breaking celebration?
The Chinese must have been clapping graciously BUT ON DIFFERENT PLANE OF HUMOUR AND INFORMED AWARENESS of what was really going on in SND. The Chinese side can’t be both blind of sight and thinking mind?
And if we were naively gullible then, why is this time any different of their cunning ways we have NOT yet aware, let alone fathom the financial consequences to us?
//pro-singapore
If you are willing to throw away $billions ( not your own money, but the tax-payers’) you don’t have to go to foreign
countries to look for friends! All the so called friends will come aknocking at your doors if you have $billions to distribute!!
” We are already cosy with USA” Is this a one-sided love affair??
If we have not let US to make use of the navy and air-force facilities and our recent ‘donation’ by the $billions (courtesy of GIC & TH) you think the US will hug you so tight and make you so cosy??
in the first place did we citizens ask him to use our money to invest in that? does it make a difference to us if they gain profits from it? hard lessons for who?
despite all this, there are still investments in China going on now right? and make PRCs in Singapore life easier in our country too.. can easily find jobs and more so called hard driven. Ppl from other countries are laughing at this tiny dot on the map. Very entertaining indeed.
In Suzhou Industrial Park or SIP… Putting…
1. The EXECUTIVE (Cabinet Ministers) of Government in Parliament with…
2. The LEGISLATIVE (Ministries as Civil Servants) in The Ministerial Civil Service with…
3. The JUDICIARY’S Mindset…
ALL IN ONE BASKET is a good thing and “The BEST WAY” to do business elsewhere… Because IT WORKED in TOTALITARIAN state Singapore!!! He thought that It’ll Will SURELY Work too ELSEWHERE!!! WRONG!!! Because they all have DIFFERENT Political Systems and Business Cultures!!!
Now you know WHY It’s “SMARTLY STUPID”… OR “STUPIDLY SMART” if you prefer. Either way IT IS Still STUPIDITY right!!! Because the Former is STUPID DUE TO SEEING Self Till “Over-Smart”. And the Latter is Already STUPID. So… This IS one Vice-Versa which means exactly the same!!! Just like the SAYING…
“Stupid IS AS Stupid DOES”!
Which hard lessons did our ministers have to learn?
They all have smooth sailing for more than 40 years.