CleanTech Partners to develop fund to help businesses

May Wong Channel NewsAsia 23 Mar 10;

SINGAPORE: CleanTech Partners, a consortium of six Singapore-based clean technology firms, is planning to develop a fund to help businesses expand in the clean-tech sector.

It is working with a French corporate advisory company, Gereje, on this.

The Eco-Venture Fund will start with about S$380 million initially and is due to be set up within nine months.

Demand is fast rising for clean technology, and the CleanTech Partners consortium is signing up with a Chinese partner to develop an eco-friendly industrial and commercial park in Hangzhou.

The new agreement and its Eco-Venture Fund will help Singapore businesses explore the Chinese market.

"The projects we find will probably be Asia-based with China being perhaps a 50 per cent centric in that fund," said Patrick Teo, chairman of Cleantech Partners. "It'll be open to anybody who wants to acquire exposure in clean technology in Asia through us.

"The minimum size is not small - we don't want a lot of small investors. We prefer a smaller number of larger investors. They on their own, aren't large enough and they may not want to expand that kind of resources that is required to develop, identify, evaluate, assess, develop a project... but as a consortium, you spread the cost and you get a lot more networking and feedback through a CTP-led effort I think and it makes sense for a small country like Singapore."

Two other agreements signed will help companies make further inroads into Zhejiang province.

Having facilitated this, the Singapore-Zhejiang Economic and Trade Council wants to do more.

It wants to focus on infocomm technology and environmental services and encourage firms to use Singapore as a trading hub.

The council, which held its sixth meeting in Singapore on Wednesday, was formed in November 2003. It was set up to promote economic exchanges and cooperation between Zhejiang province and Singapore.

"The first is of course to get Zhejiang companies to think about using Singapore as a trading hub, as a communications centre to help them expand (into) markets outside of China," said Lim Hwee Hua, Minister in the Prime Minister's Office.

"We have all the linkages to Southeast Asia, we have the Free Trade Agreements that we've signed, which we can make available to companies that are based in Singapore.

"The second is actually in areas where the services sector is actually expanding within China itself, in terms of like urban solutions, transportation, infrastructure development and so on.

"These are the very areas that we've gone through ourselves in Singapore and in many other places and for which I think we can bring something to the table to work with the companies there."

Last year, bilateral trade between Singapore and Zhejiang amounted to nearly US$2 billion, down 15 per cent on-year.

Singapore's exports to Zhejiang amounted to US$675 million, while imports from Zhejiang reached US$1.32 billion (S$1.85 billion) last year.

Singapore and Zhejiang usually hold its council meetings biennially. But from this year, the meetings will be held on an annual basis instead.

Mrs Lim hopes that the frequent meetings would lead to more collaborations.

Last year, Singapore's actual foreign direct investments into Zhejiang increased by 2.6 per cent to S$450 million. That makes Singapore Zhejiang's sixth largest investment partner in 2009.

- CNA/yb