Both parties indicated strong commitment to leverage their expertise and capabilities in engineering and urban solutions, forming a strategic partnership to collaborate in the areas of Intelligent Building Technologies, Building Performance & Sustainability, Airports & Seaports, Data Centres, Rail & Road Transport, and Power & Smart Grids.

Meinhardt, with the support of Singapore Economic Development Board, operates Singapore’s first Smart Cities Centre of Excellence (CoE) by an engineering consultancy firm, and the planned collaboration with Siemens will support the CoE’s development of new smart city solutions.

The collaboration will enhance both firms’ leading international position as a model for smart technology provider in the region by incorporating state-of-the-art technology in ICT, smart buildings, intelligent transportation, renewable energy and green technologies.

The Memorandum of Understanding was signed by Mr Omar Shahzad, Group CEO of Meinhardt and Dr. Armin Bruck, President and CEO of Siemens Pte Ltd. The signing ceremony was witnessed by Dr S. Nasim, Group Executive Chairman of Meinhardt and Dr. Roland Busch, Managing Board Member of Siemens AG.

“As a world technology leader and partner for smart and sustainable cities, Siemens has in-depth experience in working with cities to offer the solutions and local know-how to become more efficient, effective and environmentally-friendly,” said Dr Armin Bruck, President & CEO of Siemens Pte Ltd. “This partnership will enable Meinhardt and Siemens to combine our engineering consultancy experience with technical expertise to provide the most appropriate smart technologies for cities across Asia and beyond.”

Said Kow Juan Tiang, Group Director for Environment & Infrastructure Solutions Group at International Enterprise Singapore, the Singapore government agency partnering Singapore companies in going global, “The Internet of Things is transforming the way infrastructure is developed and managed. Through effective utilisation of technology, enabled by data gathering and analysis, infrastructure can be better operated, bringing greater convenience to both operators and end users. Given the global demand for smart cities infrastructure, Meinhardt’s strategic partnership with Siemens is timely and will allow both companies to use Singapore as a base to jointly create solutions for the next generation of smart buildings and infrastructure. We will continue to work closely with Meinhardt to build its global competitiveness.”

Mr Omar Shahzad, Meinhardt’s Group CEO, welcomed the MOU as a significant milestone for Meinhardt’s CoE and will create the most ambitious technology partnering and advisory platform to date for today’s fast urbanizing world. He said “Increasing urbanization is one of the most serious challenges & opportunities facing cities and countries across Asia and the Emerging Market World.  Our collaboration with Siemens will allow us to harness our complementary strengths and jointly work on solutions that can help address these issues more effectively”.