SYDNEY ― The challenge with building a network of smart cities in the region lies not in the area of funding, but in implementing ideas and changing the way urban areas are run to tap into technology fully, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Sunday (March 18).

In joining forces with Australia to build smart and sustainable cities, the Association of South-east Asian Nations (Asean) will find ways to work together to “inter-operate”, share approaches and nail down compatible strategies, Mr Lee said at a press conference with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull at the end of a regional summit in Sydney.

“I would not argue whether you need more money or less money. The challenge with smart cities is not finding the money,” Mr Lee said.

“The challenge with smart cities is to make the implementation and to change the ways in which our cities and our administrations operate to make full use of the technology… which would widen the footprints for our residents, our citizens, to be able to use the facilities across borders and for the administrations to be able to learn from each other’s experiences.”

Mr Lee was responding to a question on whether the A$30 million (S$30.5 million) investment in an Asean-Australia initiative on smart and sustainable cities was enough for the projects.

Under the initiative, announced by Mr Turnbull on Saturday, Australia will join hands with Asean member states to pool information and build a shared knowledge base that supports sustainable urbanisation.

Over the next five years, Australia will help Asean develop cities across South-east Asia in a smart and sustainable manner. The island continent, with expertise in fields such as green infrastructure and renewable energy, will also provide training and technical assistance to build resilient and competitive communities.

Singapore, as rotating chair of Asean this year, hopes to build a network of smart cities in the region. This Asean-Australia initiative will complement the grouping’s efforts, Mr Lee had noted earlier.

“I’m very happy that the Australian government is pursuing this and I’m quite sure that as and when specific attractive projects come up, which will happen, those projects will find no difficulty getting funded,” Mr Lee said on Sunday.

Mr Turnbull added that “sharing experience and awareness” was key in building smart cities.

“The important thing is to know what everyone else is doing, the experiments others are trying, whether they work (or) don’t, and if they make mistakes, don’t keep on making them again and again,” said the Australian leader.

Apart from smart cities, another key outcome from the Asean-Australia Special Summit was a landmark agreement to team up in the fight against terrorism in the region, enabling the countries involved to share expertise and develop counter-terrorism laws among other things.

Mr Lee said during the joint press conference that while legal frameworks vary across countries ― due to history, political climate and people’s attitudes ― intelligence, techniques and technical assistance need to be shared.

“These are … essential if we are going to work together internationally, in order to deal with a transboundary threat,” said Mr Lee, noting that a counter-terrorism conference that ran on the sidelines of the summit gave all parties the impetus to team up more closely.

Stressing the importance of sharing intelligence as nations team up in the fight against terrorism, Mr Turnbull said: “By far, the most important step is getting all of those agencies and their heads together, ensuring that they continue to build on that platform of trust that they share information.”

A piece of information that may appear inconsequential in the hands of one police or security service may be one that solves the puzzle in another country, the Australian premier noted.

“Sharing is critically important… We’ve been able to disrupt very, very serious threats to security in Australia (and) terrorist plots because of a piece of information that has come from overseas.”