China-Singapore cooperation creates stages for talents in SW China

Aerial photo taken on Sept. 25, 2017 shows the first train of the regular sea-rail transit route linking Chongqing Municipality in southwest China and Singapore running through a highway bridge in Chongqing, southwest China. (Xinhua/Tang Yi)

Thanks to the deepening cooperation between China and Singapore over the years, the southwestern Chinese metropolis of Chongqing has attracted more and more interdisciplinary talents to work together for a brighter future for the two countries.

Peng Chuanxiao, a graduate from Sichuan International Studies University, now works in the National University of Singapore (Chongqing) Research Institute.

In college, he used to follow a curriculum that equipped him with the knowledge needed to work for international organizations. Peng continued to study public policy at King's College London.

After graduation, Peng had been agonizing over whether to work in a bigger city or return to his hometown of Chongqing until the research institute offered him the opportunity to further engage in the educational cooperation between China and Singapore under the China-Singapore (Chongqing) Demonstration Initiative on Strategic Connectivity.

Launched in 2015, the initiative is the third such cooperation initiative between the two countries. It follows the Suzhou Industrial Park established in China's eastern province of Jiangsu in 1994, and the Tianjin Eco-city inaugurated in 2008 in north China.

"I never imagined that I could start a career closely related with my major in the city. I thought such a job opportunity could only be possible in big cities like Beijing," said Peng.

The institute was established in April 2020 amid the raging COVID-19 pandemic, thereby Peng describes his job as "watering the seeds and waiting for fruits to grow."

Now the young man is mainly in charge of helping local start-ups to learn cutting-edge technologies from Singapore.

Like Peng Chuanxiao, Peng Ziyun also finds her foothold in the deepening collaboration of China and Singapore.

She joined the New Land-Sea Corridor Operation Co., Ltd., which operates commercial projects in the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor, a major land-sea freight route connecting Chongqing with overseas destinations.

The corridor is a trade and logistics channel jointly built by Singapore and provincial-level regions in western China under the China-Singapore (Chongqing) Demonstration Initiative on Strategic Connectivity.

In the first 10 months of 2021, the corridor saw 92,831 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of cargo containers, worth more than 14.72 billion yuan (about 2.31 billion U.S. dollars), transported via Chongqing.

"I'm an English major, minoring in international trade and economics. Choosing this job, I can not only make good use of my language skills but also participate in the trade between Chongqing and the rest of the world," said Peng Ziyun.

More opportunities are ahead.

In the next five years, Chongqing plans to build a talent service center, aiming to attract 1,000 professional talents in the modern service industry, 100 innovative enterprises and 10 high-end talent and research teams.

"I can feel that Chongqing is ramping up its efforts to be closer to the outside world. It is building itself into a leading international consumption center and its tertiary industry is promising, with the added value of the first three quarters in 2021 exceeding 1 trillion yuan," said Peng Chuanxiao. "I have faith in Chongqing's future."■