China and Singapore will maintain their commitment to developing Suzhou Industrial Park and build it into an internationally competitive high-tech park, senior officials of both countries said Monday.

The China-Singapore Suzhou Industrial Park, located in the east end of Suzhou in east China's Jiangsu Province, is the biggest economic and technological cooperative project between the Chinese and Singaporean governments.

It celebrated its 10th anniversary last week.

Its developer is the China-Singapore Suzhou Industrial Park Development Co Ltd (CSSD), a Sino-Singapore joint venture that is 65 percent held by China and 35 percent held by Singapore.

Singapore's Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong visited Suzhou Monday and attended the Seventh China-Singapore Joint Steering Council Meeting on future development of the park. The meeting was also attended by China's Vice-Premier Wu Yi.

The meeting was told that the industrial park was a successful example for Sino-foreign cooperative projects.

Both the Chinese and Singaporean parties will continue to contribute to the project according to the existing co-operative framework and fulfil their commitment to investors.

It is intended to build the park into one that is competitive on the world stage during the next decade, by improving the infrastructure and rationalizing the industrial structure.

During the past 10 years, the park has attracted US$16.7 billion of contracted foreign investment and US$7.2 billion of actual foreign investment.

(China Daily May 18, 2004)