Hangzhou’s municipal government will sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Singapore’s Homegrown Cleantech Partners Pte Ltd (CTP) - a consortium of local firms – to jointly master-plan, develop and promote the Hangzhou-Singapore Eco-Park (HSEP), making it the first multibillion-dollar project in China initiated by the private sector.

The MOU will be signed by Hangzhou's vice-secretary-general Xu Baojin and CTP's chairman Patrick Teo. Xu is also the chairman of the Hangzhou Qianjiang Economic Development Area management committee.

Hangzhou's vice-secretary-general Xu Baojin

Estimated to cost between US$1.5 billion and US$2 billion, the five-sq-km HSEP will be located in the Hangzhou Qianjiang Economic Development Zone in the northwest part of Jiangsu’s Hangzhou Linping industry area.

The project will contain commercial, retail and residential segments, service apartments and clean technology-based light industrial areas.

Construction of the park will be carried out in two phases. The first phase will involve a 500 mu site (about 35ha) with a total estimated gross floor area of 860,000 sq m.

It is being planned for commercial and retail use zoning, as well as service apartments, followed by the development of residential and light industrial zones in phase 2.

The HSEP will be a platform for Singapore and Singapore-based companies to showcase their innovations in clean technologies in China. It aims to have at least half of its energy use derived from renewable sources and will utilize green strategies for water management, waste and by-product exchanges, transportation and green buildings to enhance the competitiveness of businesses located within the park.

Although Singapore has been working with the Chinese government on several other commercial projects, including the ongoing Tianjin Eco-city, the HSEP is the first driven by non-government-linked companies..

“To me, it represents the next level of SME development for Singapore, coming on the heels of the government's announcement last week that Singapore is coming out of recession. And I hope this will not be the only one,” said Michael Heng, president and CEO of Energycorp-Global Pte Ltd, one of the key drivers behind CTP.

The CTP consists of more than 30 Singapore-based SMEs with interests in the clean-technology sector. They include waste-recycling firm IUT Global, photovoltaic solar systems integrator Phoenix Solar SG, green engineering company EnviPure and concentrator photovoltaic cell maker ARB Technologies.

CTP's role is to aggregate the interests and resources of the SMEs in the sustainable development industry to secure opportunities in the region, according to the company.

It has appointed venture accelerator Cleantech Ventures Asia as its managing company. Cleantech Ventures Asia is part of The Creafin Group, a boutique corporate advisory practice founded by former merchant banker Patrick Teo.

By Xie Fang