PM Lee Hsien Loong at the official dinner hosted by Myanmar President U Htin Kyaw on 7 June 2016

Your Excellency U Htin Kyaw, President of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, Daw Su Su Lwin, Excellencies, distinguished guests, Ladies and Gentlemen.

I would like to thank President U Htin Kyaw and Madame for your warm welcome and hospitality. I last visited Nay Pyi Taw in 2014 for the ASEAN Summit and I am happy to be back to meet the new leadership and to discuss new areas of cooperation. As the President pointed out, this year, we celebrate the 50th anniversary, the “Golden Jubilee” of our bilateral ties.

But historically, our ties go much further back. We share a colonial heritage and in fact, we have the same urban planner – a Dr William Montgomerie. He was a British surgeon by training and he was appointed by Sir Stamford Raffles to help plan the growing city of Singapore. From Singapore he moved to Rangoon, where Dr Montgomerie was again tasked to assist in the design of downtown Rangoon’s iconic checkerboard layout. So while Singapore’s streets are not a perfect checkerboard layout, unlike Rangoon’s, the waterfronts in both are cities are dominated by significant municipal buildings.

It has been nearly 200 years, but our people have kept up the links and we have grown closer together. Today, we have a sizable community of Myanmars in Singapore, about 200,000 people, contributing to our society in many ways, as students, as professionals. And many of them have gone back to Myanmar and made further contributions to Myanmar.

Like Minn Naing Oo, who graduated with a law degree from the National University of Singapore, who took on senior positions in the Singapore International Arbitration Centre and our Ministry of Trade and Industry, and in fact worked with Minister Ong Ye Kung who is with me here on this journey, on free trade negotiations. Now, he is a Managing Director of a prominent law firm in Myanmar and has been contributing significantly to the legal sector, at the Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry, and on the Myanmar International Arbitration Centre Formation Committee. Another such person is musician Saw James Dar Hsoe, who graduated from the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, where he studied the cello, and now is back in Myanmar and is currently the Conductor of the Attachment of Cloud Orchestra.

In fact, we now so many Myanmar alumni, over 200, from Nanyang Technological University, that they have just set up a chapter in Myanmar last year. And one of these alumni who has come back to Myanmar is Myo Thida, who obtained a research scholarship and studied in Singapore for six years. Then she worked with A*STAR, our research agency, for five years, then she returned to Myanmar to join the Ministry of Education. And now she is the Vice Principal of the Singapore-Myanmar Vocational Training Institute, whose launch I will be officiating on Thursday.

We also have many Singaporeans in Myanmar and Singaporean businesses in Myanmar which have been operating here for many years. And when I am in Yangon tomorrow, I will be meeting about 400 of these Singaporeans in the community there. Among the companies, they are big and small, but one of them is Keppel Land, they built the Sedona hotels in Yangon and Mandalay, and contributed to the tourism industry. Another is lighting specialist Krislite, which has been here since the 90s, provided lighting for infrastructure and hotels in Yangon and for parliament buildings for the city hall, for public streets and stadiums in Nay Pyi Taw, which were used when Myanmar hosted the 2013 SEA Games. So there are many links on both sides, and many Singaporeans and Myanmars travel back and forth for business, for leisure, or community service. Presently, there are 49 weekly flights between our two countries. And I am very glad that we will be facilitating travel further, because as we announced today, Singapore and Myanmar will be lifting visa requirements for ordinary passport holders for up to 30 days’ stay, and this will make it easier for both sides to visit each other. And I hope that if we can increase the number of flights and connectivity between our two countries, we will be able to enhance and deepen the relationship further.

Myanmar is not only an old friend but also an important partner for us. Over the last decade, during Myanmar’s transition to democracy, we have walked alongside Myanmar. Wishing you well, encouraging Myanmar to continue on the path, lending a helping hand from time to time. For example when Cyclone Nargis hit in 2008, we sent relief and reconstruction aid to the victims, as part of the ASEAN effort.

And one of the relief workers is today in my delegation and she is Professor Fatimah Lateef, who is now a member of Parliament, and she ran mobile clinics at the Twante Township east of the Yangon River. So through all these people linkages I am glad that over the years, we have been able to keep up our exchanges between our peoples and between our Governments. My predecessor Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong, has visited Myanmar many times in different capacities. Our officials visit each other regularly to exchange views. We have the Singapore Cooperation Programme and other initiatives, which have enabled more than 12,600 Myanmar officials to attend training courses, and I am very proud that several of your top civil servants are alumni of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Policy.

So I am very happy to be here back in Nay Pyi Daw again, and see that Myanmar is progressing in its political development and economic construction. We wish you well and we look forward to continuing to be of help in a modest way. So when Minister Vivian told me that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi had expressed interest in how we build and operate hawker centres in Singapore, I was happy that we had found something relevant to share. so I look forward to welcoming the Yangon Chief Minister Phyo Min Thein to come to Singapore to try our hawker food and see our hawker centres, because I think he plans to build some hawker centres like that in Myanmar.

I will be in Yangon tomorrow and on Thursday, and I especially look forward to launching the Singapore-Myanmar Vocational Training Institute. It is our flagship project, it supports vocational training in practical and employable skills for Myanmar youth. And the current campus for the vocational and training institute used to be the Nat Mauk Polytechnic High School, which is where President U Htin Kyaw’s mother used to teach, so I understand. And I am very happy that the project has launched, it is underway, and that first batch of students have graduated in May and many of them have found jobs and internships already.

To encourage students to give of their best, Singapore will sponsor top students from the Vocational Training Institute for short-term internship programmes in Singapore. And we will also run “Train-The-Trainer” programmes so that we will not only help to produce the next generation of skilled workers in the institute, but also a new generation of technical and vocational educators for Myanmar.

I also look forward to working with Myanmar in ASEAN. I understand that your priority in this phase has to be domestic nation-building. But Myanmar has an important contribution to make to the region, and I am sure that by working together within ASEAN, Myanmar will also find value for itself, both in developing your economy and supporting your nation-building plans, but also in providing a network of friends and partners in Southeast Asia who can cooperate to further common interests, to deepen our economic integration, to give ourselves more options, and to enhance our influence in the world.

So Excellencies, distinguished guests, friends, ladies and gentlemen, may I now invite you to join me in a toast to the continued good health and success of Your Excellencies President U Htin Kyaw and Daw Su Su Lwin; and State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, to the resilience, peace and prosperity of the people of Myanmar, and to the next chapter of flourishing ties between Myanmar and Singapore.