Sino-Singapore Friendship Library opens in Tianjin

Sino-Singapore Friendship Library, a joint project between China and Singapore, has opened to the public in North China's Tianjin municipality.

The library is part of the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City in Binhai New Area, an intergovernmental project between the two countries.

With five floors above the ground and 67,000 square meters in floor space, the library is now home to some 350,000 books and is expected to store 1.5 million books and 1 million historical documents in the future, said Xu Jiangtao, head of the library's book management department.

The library features an ancient book room that stores a complete copy of the "Siku Quanshu," or literally meaning the "Complete Library in Four Sections," believed to be China's largest encyclopedia on Chinese classic texts, history, philosophy and literature.

Robots are installed in the library to shelve books and help readers navigate. Readers can borrow books by using their smartphones to scan barcodes.

The Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City, inaugurated in 2008, aims to strengthen environmental protection, conserve resources and build a harmonious society.

Besides the eco-city, there are currently two such cooperation initiatives between China and Singapore: the Suzhou Industrial Park in East China's Jiangsu province and an intergovernmental project in Southwest China's Chongqing municipality.