Economic collaboration between Singapore and China's Zhejiang province received another boost as Singapore companies and Zhejiang cities inked agreements to partner each other at the sixth Singapore-Zhejiang Economic and Trade Council (SZETC) meeting here on Tuesday.

At the meeting, the Council discussed and agreed on the 2010/ 2011 workplan, which will focus on six key areas, namely trade and economic, environmental services, transport and logistics, infocomm technology, tourism, and modern services.

The signings that took place during the meeting were Joint- Venture Hangzhou-Singapore Eco-Park (HSEP) Investment Agreement, Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Jurong International and Zhoushan Municipal Government, MOU between International Enterprise (IE) Singapore and the Ningbo Municipal Government to extend its cross-sectoral collaboration to 2012.

According to data from the Zhejiang Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation Department, in 2009, bilateral trade between Singapore and Zhejiang amounted to 1.99 billion U.S. dollars, a decrease of 15 percent over $2.34 billion in 2008. Singapore's exports to Zhejiang amounted to $675 million while imports from Zhejiang reached $1.32 billion in 2009.

In terms of investments, Singapore's actual foreign direct investments (FDI) in Zhejiang hit $321 million in 2009 with 36 projects, an increase of 2.6 percent over 2008.

More than 50 officials and companies from Zhejiang are currently in Singapore for the SZETC meeting.