The recent warming of cross-strait ties has given China's Fujian province a chance to grow faster and Singapore investors should take a look at opportunities here, said Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong yesterday.

After four days travelling across the province to meet local leaders and businessmen, he was struck by its growth potential, which had 'lagged behind other provinces because of the cross-strait situation in the past'.

The time has come for Fujian, which is the mainland province closest to Taiwan, to develop as quickly as the others, he told the provincial party secretary, Mr Lu Zhangong, last night.

Citing the example of Pingtan island, which is just 120km from Taiwan, Mr Goh told Mr Lu that he was particularly impressed with the 'good and imaginative' vision that Fujian leaders have for the pilot zone.

The island recently won the backing of the Chinese central government and was earmarked last month as a focal point for cross-strait economic cooperation.

Describing it a 'blank piece of paper' that could become a 'beautiful painting', Mr Goh urged the Fujian government to put thought into creating a development model that would coordinate investors with 'different painting styles'.

One potential painter on this canvas is Temasek unit Singbridge International Singapore, which yesterday signed an agreement with the Fujian government to study the feasibility of creating a 40 sq km tourism and business project on Pingtan, which boasts over 100km of sandy beach.

Mr Ko Kheng Hwa, chief executive of Singbridge, who was in Fuzhou to ink the agreement, said Pingtan has strong growth potential.

It has rich natural resources, he added, and is supported by new government policies to boost its development.

The island, which is the fifth largest in China, will have even better access and infrastructure when a new 4,976m bridge opens in September next year linking it to provincial capital Fuzhou.

And China is even proposing a 150km undersea tunnel linking Taiwan to the mainland, passing through Pingtan island. If it materialises, the tunnel may also carry a railway line linking the mainland with Taiwan.

More importantly for Singapore investors, Mr Ko said that the Fuzhou (Pingtan) Comprehensive Experimental Zone Administrative Committee is looking to Singapore to share its experience in the island's economic, urban and tourism development.

SM Goh, who had a day of meetings with local officials as well as a tour of Fuzhou-based Net-Dragon, one of China's top 10 Internet games developers, encouraged Singaporeans to 'move along with the escalator as the escalator moves up'.

'Don't wait too long to look at the potential of the place,' he said, adding that this was an opportunity for investors to engage Fujian early and shape its development.

Many Singapore businessmen already have an added advantage of 'a close relationship' with Fujian, he noted. About half of Singaporean Chinese have ancestral links to the province.

Indeed, Singaporean businessmen had told him 'they felt at home' in Fujian - they could understand the language and the local culture, they were familiar with the food, and they had 'trust that a (business) agreement would be honoured' here.

Mr Goh, who visited Xiamen, Quanzhou and Fuzhou during his five-day visit, returns home today.