Opening Remarks by Minister Lawrence Wong at WCS Mayors Forum
May 18, 2017
I want to start by welcoming all of you to the 8th annual World Cities Summit Mayors Forum.
Let me start by saying a very big Thank You to our Suzhou friends – especially Mayor Li Yaping, for graciously hosting this Forum in Suzhou, and the warm hospitality your city has extended to all of us gathered here.
The Mayors Forum was held in 2010 for the first time, and since then, year by year it has grown into an important and valuable network of Mayors and city leaders gathered together to share our experiences and best practices, and learn from one another.
We hold the event every year, but the venue alternates between Singapore, and the city which has won the Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize. By doing this, it is a way for us to congratulate the city once again for winning the prize, and it is also a chance for us to bring together all the Mayors and city leaders to visit the prize laureate’s city to see for yourself first-hand, how the city has won the prize, and what are the features that they can learn from and adapt in our own cities.
So as all of you know, Suzhou was the third city to be awarded the Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize, after Bilbao and New York. And today, we have more than 60 Mayors and city leaders who have come to Suzhou, including as well, senior leaders of international organisations and many urban solutions companies.
Besides attending this forum, I hope you will also find the time to explore Suzhou, whether on your own or through one of the site visits that we have lined up in the programme. There is an old Chinese saying“上有天堂，下有苏杭”. It means – up in the skies, there is heaven; but here on earth, we have Suzhou and Hangzhou, and it speaks of the beauty of this city of Suzhou. And indeed, there are many beautiful sites here to visit, which have been arranged as part of the programme and I encourage all of you to make the most of it.
We had very good discussions on the theme of "Innovative Cities of Opportunities" at this forum last year. So this year we are continuing the theme by talking about liveable and sustainable cities, and how we can achieve this with innovation and collaboration.
As part of today’s Forum, we have four sessions – one on planning and governance, second on heritage and culture, third on resilient and sustainable environment, and fourth on liveability with growth. These are very important issues that we all spend a great deal of time thinking about in our own cities, and we very much look forward to hearing your views, your perspectives so that we can enrich our discussion today.
In Singapore, we have accumulated some 50 years of rapid urbanisation, and we have accumulated some experience, which we are happy to share as we have done here in Suzhou for example, as well as in other cities in China like Tianjin, and many other places around Asia. In fact, in our Singapore delegation, we have some of our best urban planners, including the master planner of modern Singapore, Dr Liu Thai Ker, who is now the Chairman of the Centre of Liveable Cities. He is speaking to us tomorrow, and many of the planners who have been involved in Singapore’s urbanisation process. However, we acknowledge that we do not have all the answers. There are many challenges that we face, and we are continuously learning and trying to find new solutions for ourselves.
For example, we are investing more in new infrastructure for our own city. We are expanding our air and sea ports. We are linking Singapore up with Kuala Lumpur with the High Speed Rail. These are all major investments that we are putting into infrastructure for the coming decade.
Besides building and rebuilding our city, we are also getting more attention to culture, heritage and liveability factors. Of course, all of these are considerations in building cities. We are also trying to build the biggest and tallest buildings in Singapore, but our aim is to capitalise and leverage on the distinctive features of our multicultural society, our own cosmopolitan way of life, our clean state and green environment. These are Singapore characteristics that we can build on, and we will continue to improve to create a better living environment for our people.
And thirdly, we are also leveraging on technology to build a Smart Nation. It is sometimes surprising to people that Singapore is an oil hub even though we have no oil resources. Yet, we are one of the largest oil trading nations in the world. So, if data is going to be the “new oil” of the future, we would like to be the data hub, or digital hub. And that is why we are also investing in technology, in information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure, so that Singapore can be the digital hub of the future. For example, we are using sensor data and analytics to manage our public buses crowding and waiting time, and we are conducting runs of autonomous vehicles for public and freight transport. These are some of the ideas and initiatives that we are working on in Singapore, but we would very much like this to be a Forum where we can all learn from one another and hear from each other’s experiences.
So on that note, I would encourage all of us to engage actively, to share your views, and I wish all of you a very successful Forum.
Thank you very much.