Prime Minister (PM) Lee Hsien Loong will be returning home to Singapore from Shanghai today. He was there for the last leg of a five-day working visit to China from Sunday (Apr 8) to Thursday (Apr 12).

Shanghai Party chief Li Qiang, who is widely seen in the running for a top national leadership post, hosted him for dinner.

Since the early 1990s, almost every Shanghai party boss has gone on to become part of the country's top decision-making body, the Politburo Standing Committee.

PM Lee also attended the DBS Asian Insights Conference 2018 Leadership Dialogue as the Guest-of-Honour.

Here are the highlights of Li Qiang's opening remarks at his meeting with PM Lee at the Xijiao State Guesthouse.

1. Shanghai is open like its role model, S'pore

According to The Straits Times, Li said that Shanghai wants to continue learning from Singapore and open up further to attract talent and investments from other countries.

This year, China marks the 40th anniversary of its reform and opening up.

He said:

"The defining feature of Shanghai is its openness, just like Singapore, which has always been regarded by us as our role model.

We want to open our doors to the rest of the world."

2. S'pore and Shanghai can cooperate further

Li outlined four areas in which greater cooperation can be achieved between Singapore and Shanghai, given the similarities in outlook and openness in both cities.

The areas of cooperation include:

• Education, science and technology, healthcare and medical research;
• Financial services;
• Urban planning and management

He also noted that Singapore is the largest foreign investor in Shanghai.

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3. More people-to-people exchanges can be done

Li also said that one other area where both cities can cooperate on is people-to-people exchanges between the Chinese in Singapore and China.

According to Channel NewsAsia, Li said, "We always say that the amity between people holds the key to national friendships. So we believe there is a lot for us to achieve in this area. The Chinese community accounts for about 70 per cent of the total population of Singapore... We must appeal to the emotional affinity among the people."

Li also accepted an invitation from PM Lee to visit Singapore again at a mutually convenient time.

What PM Lee's China visit signifies

According to a commentary by Lye Liang Fook, a Senior Fellow at ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, PM Lee's visit to China seeks to achieve the following things:

• Maintain regular exchanges between the two top leaderships,
• Reinforcing Singapore's strong and early support for China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI),
• Showcase the "broad and substantive" relationship between the two cities, and to
• Strengthen Singapore's role as ASEAN's 2018 chair and the coordinator of ASEAN-China relations.

PM Lee wrote in a Facebook post after his site visit to Envision, a smart energy solution provider, and China's ride-hailing firm Didi Chuxing, that Singapore can learn from China in using smart solutions to "improve energy efficiency for a more sustainable future".

You can see a video of Li Qiang welcoming PM Lee and his entourage here.

Top image via Lee Hsien Loong/FB