Chongqing- A signing ceremony for the cooperation and construction of the China-Singapore interconnection project operation center took place in southwestern China's Chongqing Municipality on Friday.

The China-Singapore (Chongqing) Demonstration Initiative on Strategic Connectivity (CCI) Administrative Bureau and the Yuzhong People's District Government held the signing ceremony, followed by a press conference.

The operation center is located at Raffles City Chongqing. The Chongqing Branch of DBS Bank and the Financial Service Center of China-Singapore Interconnection Project of Standard Chartered Bank signed an agreement to settle in.

CCI was launched in November 2015. Driven by the project, Yuzhong District has become an important destination for Singapore's investment in Chongqing over the past five years. With new progress in the opening-up and cooperation related to the service sector between China and Singapore, the role of their radiation has also been enhanced.

Attracting international enterprises 

Yang Yi, deputy director of the CCI Administrative Bureau, pointed out that the cooperation in building the China-Singapore interconnection project operation center will promote Yuzhong District as the core bearing area of the China-Singapore interconnection project and the first destination for enterprises from Singapore and countries of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN ), and regions along the Belt and Road to exploit the market in western China.

Additionally, the operation center expects to build Raffles City Chongqing into an international economic, trade, and humanities exchange platform in China's western region, helping to build the international communication center in central and western Chongqing.

This is also conducive to driving Chongqing's opening-up to the world, promoting the innovative development of Yuzhong District in the areas of headquarters trade, cross-border service trade, and finance, which will empower Chongqing to become a pioneer of opening-up in inland China.

Deng Guanghuai, vice mayor of Yuzhong District, introduced that in the next step, Yuzhong will deeply boost the cooperation between China and Singapore in key areas such as modern finance, modern commerce and trade, information and communication, education, and culture, and actively attract the world's top 500, multinational enterprises, international institutions, foreign-related business associations, and other open subjects to enter to Raffles City Chongqing, creating a regional headquarters base for multinational enterprises.

Meanwhile, Yuzhong District actively promotes Singapore and ASEAN financial institutions, financial technology enterprises, and green financial institutions to settle in Raffles City Chongqing, establishing China-Singapore Cooperation Financial Service Industrial Park and Jiefangbei - Chaotianmen Green Financial Avenue.

Yuzhong District took the lead in studying measures for the reciprocal opening of financial markets with ASEAN countries under "New Financial Services" rules of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. It will actively promote the piloting of the China-Singapore financial innovation business.

Furthermore, Yuzhong District will continuously strengthen the functions of service platforms such as China-Singapore Enterprise Integrated Service Center to provide full life-cycle services for enterprises from Singapore and ASEAN countries and regions to invest in Chongqing, building a "one-stop" platform for government-enterprise intercommunication.

Pioneering in special support policies

"Last September, Yuzhong District took the lead in introducing the first special support measures for promoting the cluster development of Raffles City Chongqing China-Singapore Project,” said Jiangnan, Director of Yuzhong District Business Committee. "This is to further play the role of Raffles City Chongqing, which serves as an important platform for the CCI project."

Jiang added that the support measures focus on six aspects, such as expanding the opening-up of the service industry and supporting the development of the headquarters economy.

Nine additional measures are introduced to support enterprises to attract and retain talent and encourage them to expand the use of foreign investment to enable the high-quality development of China-Singapore interconnection projects.

(Du Min, as an intern, also contributed to this report.)