Global Times report: "City swaps spur careers", 11 December 2013

By Liao Fangzhou

Ong Siew Gay, Singapore's Consul-General in Shanghai (center), at the closing ceremony of the 2013 Singapore-China Young Business Ambassadors program Photo: Yang Hui/GT

Home to an increasing number of Singapore regional business headquarters and the largest Singaporean community on the Chinese mainland, Shanghai continues to enjoy close economic ties with its fourth largest external investor by taking up about 10 percent of all Singapore's foreign direct investment. 

And the cooperation will expand. "As highly urbanized cities facing common challenges in social policy issues like public transport, education, healthcare and an aging population, there is great room for mutual learning in these areas," Ong Siew Gay, the Singapore Consul-General in Shanghai, told the Global Times.

The close country-to-country collaboration would have been unlikely without personal connections and the Singapore-China Young Business Ambassadors (YBA) program is a key platform for bringing together and nurturing a network of business professionals in the two regions.

Since its launch in 2004, the YBA program has given 77 young professionals in Shanghai and Singapore the opportunity to work in 40 or more host companies and organizations in Shanghai and Singapore.

In early December, five professionals from Singapore and six professionals from Shanghai completed the 2013 Singapore-Shanghai interchange that had begun in September. All of them were leading staff members selected by their companies to work and learn with host organizations in the same industries. 

Some of the young business ambassadors from Singapore and China join in song together. Photo: Yang Hui/GT

A critical role

Ong Siew Gay is enthusiastic about the program. "The young ambassadors play a critical role in strengthening our people-to-people relationships. By spending 10 weeks working and living in each other's cities, they gain a keen understanding of the local business environment and forge strong friendships. We hope that they will harness these valuable social networks and connections to promote greater bilateral cooperation in future," Ong said.

Banking and finance is a vital sector and this year Eo Xiang Jing, a 28-year-old customer management assistant from Singapore's DBS Bank, came to work at the Shanghai Pudong Development Bank. "I found openness a major characteristic of the corporate culture in Shanghai. This is positive for efficiency and I am glad that it is practiced here too," Eo said. 

He said both banks emphasized delivering the right service at the right time to the right customer, and he found aspects of the Shanghai bank good models. "One of the things I found worth learning was the software and systems used to run customer campaigns - they seemed more integrated than ours."

Eo said his biggest gain from the YBA program was learning about the people and the culture, and having the opportunity to be exposed to a foreign market and work. "The program drives and builds maturity in individuals and all this learning will critically form what the individuals stand for in the long run." 

Expansion in tourism

The 2013 YBA program also witnessed an expansion of the tourism sector. Rebecca Koh, a manager from Singapore's Sentosa Leisure Management and Feng Yun from the Shanghai Fengxian Tourism Development Agency went on exchange along with Shao Xudong, from the secretary of the People's Government Office of Fengxian, who went to work with Singapore's largest tourism company, Resorts World Sentosa (RWS). 

The 26-year-old Koh explored historic and eco-tourism products in Fengxian - she noted that they were very different from the beach tourism packages her own company offered and although those tourism products might not have been relevant or applicable to Sentosa, they had helped her gain new insights as a tourism professional. 

"The experience has broadened my perspective and helped me gain valuable insights into the Chinese market - for instance the approaches to domestic and international travel. Being in the tourism industry, it is important for me to understand tourism and market preferences outside my home country," Koh said.

She said she had looked forward to being fully immersed in Chinese culture and expanding her network in China, and the actual experience had exceeded her expectations. "I was also very fortunate to be able to meet many Chinese colleagues and friends who showed me warmth, hospitality and generosity."

The other exchange partner, Feng, found herself sitting at Koh's desk in Singapore for 10 weeks. "This was a great chance to observe, experience, and study Singapore close up," she said.

Feng was enthusiastic about the efficiency of Singapore's government and administration and found the city-state's cultural fusion impressive. "The Chinese are a larger ethnic group than the Malaysians and Indians but the society is not at all Chinese-dominant. The city planners make sure that in every district the residents are racially mixed to enhance coherence."

Food for thought

Feng also spent time studying the island resort of Sentosa. "I found that this tourism complex, contrary to the general assumption or belief, in fact brings very limited benefit to other tourist attractions nearby. This has made me think about the Disney project in Shanghai in a different light and consider seriously how to turn wishful blueprints into reality." 

Thirty-year-old Shao told the Global Times that his first exchange choice was to work with the Singapore Economic Development Board but he now thought he had gained a lot more by working with the tourism company. "This is an international and professional private business where I learned how to explore the market, do marketing and promotion, and reduce risks. It gave me an authentic experience of how the private sector works and what these companies really care about. I think this was a very good lesson on handling the relationships between a government and the market."

During his time at the RWS he helped the staff understand China's new tourism regulations. Introduced in October, the law now forbids travel agencies' tour packages from including compulsory shopping excursions, extra service fees or other items as additional charges. As a result, tourist agencies with groups heading to Singapore started charging more and tourism companies, including the RWS, were very concerned at the impact of the new rules.

"I explained what I thought drove Chinese tourists along with the things they preferred and behavioral patterns. I said that although in short term the number of tourist groups from China to Singapore would decrease, the need for individual and semi-individual tourism was on the rise and these were usually people with a higher capacity for consumption. I recommended that the company redesigned its tour packages, and changed promotions to catch the eyes of individual tourists."

Singapore International Foundation Governor Cham Tao Soon (left) receives the Magnolia Silver award from Wang Xiaoshu, the executive vice president with the Shanghai People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries. Photo: Yang Hui/GT

A taste of culture

Both Shanghai and Singapore are cultural centers in Asia and the YBA program does not neglect culture. Ke Fei, an assistant stage manager at the Shanghai Culture Square, went through her exchange at Singapore's Esplanade - Theatres on the Bay.

She was impressed by the theater complex's motto "art is for everyone" which she said was reflected in everything from the welcome package and the slogans on the walls of the main hall to the first conversation the manager had with her. "Up to 70 percent of the shows there are free, including the performances outside the theater that tourists enjoy. This is in stark contrast to the way cultural venues in Shanghai are run - we put art and culture in a more exclusive frame." 

She said she had made many good friends with other professionals in Singapore and looked forward to retaining these links. "It was nice to develop overseas networks and we discussed the possibility of the two cultural centers working in partnership in the near future. This was an important experience for me - it expanded my network and knowledge, and most importantly, my vision," Ke said.

Desmond Chow from the Esplanade complex spent his time in the city in the programming department at the Shanghai Culture Square. "The work, in terms of performance planning and execution, was similar to my job in Singapore, and I attended several meetings and conferences. One highlight was being able to use my fluency in English to interview would-be translators for the foreign production staff for The Phantom of the Opera."

He also visited festivals, trade conferences and forums, and cultural venues, from the highly sophisticated and formal Shanghai Grand Theatre to the youth culture hot spots JZ Club and MAO Livehouse. "As an art and performance professional I wanted to absorb as many cultural happenings in Shanghai as possible. I saw more than 20 shows including symphonies, traditional Chinese music, and jazz, as well as peculiarly Chinese genres like pingtan (a form of dramatized storytelling popular in southern Jiangsu Province) which I never had a chance to see in Singapore." 

Cham Tao Soon is the governor of the Singapore International Foundation and he led the organization's work with the Shanghai People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries and the Shanghai Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs. At the closing ceremony of the 2013 YBA on December 2, Cham received a Magnolia Award for bringing together and nurturing relationships between Singaporean and Chinese business professionals and the communities at large. The annual awards honor foreigners who have made outstanding contributions to the city's social and economic development.

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23 December 2013