SIP was approved by the State Council of China in February 1994, with initial development and construction beginning that May. With an administrative area of 278 square kilometers (including the 80-square-kilometer China-Singapore Cooperative Zone), it is an important intergovernmental cooperation project between China and Singapore, hailed as “an important window for China’s reform and opening-up” and “a successful example of international cooperation”.

As a pioneering cooperation project between China and Singapore, SIP has evolved over more than three decades from a low-lying paddy field intertwining with fishponds into a modern innovation hub. In 2025, SIP’s GDP reached RMB 416.31 billion, a year-on-year growth of 5.5%. The total output value of industrial enterprises above the designated size reached RMB 736.20 billion, up 6.1%. The total imports and exports amounted to RMB 834.59 billion (exceeding RMB 800 billion for the first time), up 20.8%, and actual use of foreign investment stood at USD 1.92 billion.

SIP has retained the top spot in the country’s comprehensive evaluation of state-level economic and technological development zones for nine consecutive years (2016–2024), and secured the fourth place in the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology’s 2024 comprehensive evaluation of national high-tech zones.

SIP has fostered three distinctive strategic emerging industry clusters: biomedicine and healthcare, nanotech applications and new materials, and artificial intelligence and digital technology. In 2024, the combined output value of these three industries in SIP reached nearly RMB 450 billion. By the end of 2025, the biomedicine and healthcare cluster had gathered over 2,000 enterprises with an industry scale exceeding RMB 175 billion, ranking second nationwide in comprehensive competitiveness; the AI and digital technology cluster had gathered over 1,800 enterprises with an output value exceeding RMB 110 billion.

In November 2024, in celebrating the 30th anniversary of SIP’s establishment, China and Singapore signed an intergovernmental cooperation vision on promoting high-quality development of SIP from 2024 to 2033.