Speech by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at the Poland-Singapore Business Forum

Deputy Prime Minister Janusz Piechociński,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,

First, may I thank Deputy Prime Minister Piechociński for your very warm welcome to me and my delegation. We greatly appreciate your very kind comments about Singapore and we, ourselves, are deeply appreciative and admiring of Poland’s developments over the last 20 years.

As you have pointed out, Poland is one of the bright lights in Europe. It has been completely transformed since the end of communism in 1989. It is one of the fastest growing economies in the EU. It is the only EU country which did not dip into recession during the global financial crisis and it is not surprising that Forbes Magazine calls Poland a "“European Tiger".

Once upon a time, Singapore was also known as an “Asian Tiger” in the 1970s and in the 1980s when we were taking off, together with the other newly-industrializing economies. That is how the journalists oversimplified and tagged us and I think, over time, we have developed and established ourselves on that base and I am glad that we have been able to develop our relationship with Poland as Poland progressed and as we progressed. Last year, I hosted Prime Minister Tusk in Singapore and I am very happy to be here to reciprocate and to call on Prime Minister Tusk and Poland.

Our economic ties have been growing. Last year, it was nearly US$500 million, having increased by nearly 70 per cent over the past decade, and investments by Singapore companies in Poland are also growing and in the last decade or so have more than tripled and more of our companies are entering to joint ventures with one another. For example, Singapore’s Keppel Seghers and a Polish company, Budimex, are jointly developing a waste-to-energy combined heat and power plant in Bialystok. But I think that while we have made progress, the level we are at is still far from the potential which could be because in the scheme of things, as the DPM pointed out, US$500 million worth of trade is not an overwhelming amount. It is a good base from which we can build and grow further.

Our economic potential extends beyond our individual markets, to our respective regions. For Poland, Central Eastern Europe particularly, but the whole of Europe and the EU and for Singapore, Southeast Asia and East Asia, but more broadly to many different parts of Asia. On the part of Poland, Prime Minister Tusk told me last year that this region, Poland and its environment, are part of a new “pole for growth” for Europe. So Poland is a gateway to the region and I think there is a possibility for Singapore companies to team up with Polish companies and develop businesses, contacts, new projects, not just in Poland, but in the countries around it and I look forward to learning about Poland’s economic priorities and its connections in the region and tomorrow, I will be visiting Gdansk, which is a very important port and industrial city, and understanding more about your economy.

On our part, in Singapore, in Asia, economies are growing steadily. Our middle classes are expanding. Their purchasing power is growing, the desire for middle-class lifestyles, travel, durable goods, services, branded goods, all growing and the economies as a whole, with these middle classes, now account for more than a third of global GDP and as Asia continues to grow and as emerging markets continue to grow faster than the developed countries, I think by 2030, Asia will account for more than half of the world GDP.

So Asia and Europe have much to offer one another. Within Europe, you are embarked on the European Union and the European project and tackling the many complex issues which this arises. In Asia, Asian countries are getting together, pursuing economic integration in a different way but equally with the objective of improving our lives and developing mutual benefit and interdependence amongst the Asian countries. For example, ASEAN, the Southeast Asian nations, is working towards an ASEAN Economic Community by 2015 and ASEAN has a combined population of half-a-billion people and a GDP equal to the size of Russia. So an ASEAN Economic Community is something which is significant and can make a contribution on the international scene.

But ASEAN is also reaching out to its major partners in the region. We are establishing, working, negotiating a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, the RCEP, and this partnership will link ASEAN with its major trading partners in Asia, the major trading partners all over Asia. And if you look at them, what are they? They are in Northeast Asia, China, Japan and Korea; in South Asia, India and also to our south, in a broad sense, part of the Asian region, Australia and New Zealand. So ASEAN in the middle, as a fulcrum, but linked up with all the other parts of Asia in a free-trade area.

We have a third free-trade initiative under way in the Asia-Pacific region and that is the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which will link up countries on both sides of the Asia-Pacific. This was an initiative which was started by four very little countries about ten years ago and the four little countries were Singapore, Brunei, New Zealand and Chile in Latin America - we formed the P4 .We negotiated a free-trade area. We hoped that this would be the nucleus around which other countries would be able to join in and eventually develop into a significant free-trade initiative in the Asia-Pacific region. And this is in the process of happening because we are now negotiating, around this nucleus of the four countries, something which is much bigger and much more ambitious, which is the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which now has, I think, 13 countries negotiating, including America, including Canada, including Mexico, including Peru, including Vietnam, including Australia and Malaysia, plus the original four countries which are in the P4 and plus Japan. And if this comes to pass -- we are aiming for the end of the year, but even if it happens soon after that – we will have a free trade agreement in the Asia-Pacific region which will cover both sides of the Pacific, which will cover both the developed countries as well as the developing countries, which will cover both America as well as Japan, as well as ASEAN, as well as Australasia. And I think that bodes well for the cause of free trade and for the promotion of prosperity in our region.

So I think Asia offers many opportunities to businesses, to firms from other parts of the world and we see this business and these opportunities, particularly for companies and countries in Europe, because we believe that Europe has much to offer. Europe has a great deal of innovation, dynamism, new products, new ideas and will be looking outward and not just within the European continent, for opportunities, for markets, for partners.

Singapore can be a partner of choice for Polish companies looking for business in Asia. Compared to Poland, of course, Singapore is a very small economy. Our population is much smaller than yours. You are 38 million, we are in total, 5.5 million people, of whom Singaporeans make up less than 3.5 million. Your land area is several hundred thousand square kilometres. Our land area is 700 square kilometres. So you are much bigger than us, you have many more natural resources. But nevertheless, we hope that we have something to offer and there is advantage to both sides to work together.

We are trying continually in Singapore to upgrade ourselves, to stay efficient, to maintain a competitive edge in a competitive world. We try to create a pro-business environment which helps companies to thrive and to succeed and to get to the business of doing your business, with the Government causing a minimum of hindrance and red tape. We try to be one of the easiest places in the world to do business and, in fact, for the last seven years, the World Bank has a ranking and it has ranked us as the world’s easiest place to do business. And we also try to be an open economy, one which has almost zero tariffs, very few obstacles to trade and wants to link up with many countries in the world. So the World Economic Forum last year ranked us as the most open economy in the world for international trade and investment.

Therefore, I think it is worth the while for Polish companies to at least understand and explore what is happening in Singapore as you develop opportunities in Asia. Singapore can be a gateway for Polish companies in Asia, just as Poland can be one gateway for Singapore companies into Europe and, particularly, Central and Eastern Europe. Why? Because we are at the crossroads of Asia, connected to the world. We have an FTA network covering many Asian countries. I have told you about some of the projects under way, but there are other FTAs which we have which cover nearly all the important economies in Asia – China, Japan, Korea, India, Australia, New Zealand, the ASEAN countries. We also have a FTA with the EU negotiated and we hope it will come to pass very soon. But this network is at the disposal of companies which come and set up in Singapore and take advantage of what we can offer.

As a global city, we offer a business environment that is familiar to the West and yet that is distinctly and distinctively Asian. You can be in Asia. You can take advantage of the opportunities in Asia and you can have, at the same time, a business environment where international norms prevail, where business is done in a transparent, open manner, where the rule of law is reliable and efficient and where you and your families can be comfortable and can focus on what you need to do and not to have to struggle with day-to-day obstacles and delays and inconveniences and risks.

Therefore, Singapore has become a regional hub for many international companies. Companies have set up headquarters in Singapore, not just to do Singapore business, but to do regional business, and many European MNCs are here with such regional headquarters. Thomson, Rolls Royce, Unilever, Shell, they have all done that. Polish companies can do the same. We already have Polish IT companies in Singapore – WB Electronics, Comarch, Asseco. All these can use Singapore as a test bed when venturing into Asia, can use Singapore as a node from which you can expand and enlarge your footprint.

If you want to go beyond Singapore, we also have presence in the countries around us. We have developed good environments for business in Singapore. We have also developed industrial parks in the countries around us where we try to replicate some of the features of the Singapore environment – the infrastructure, the efficiency, the convenience, the high standards. We have such industrial parks in China. We have them in Vietnam. We have some of them in India. We have some in Indonesia. And Polish companies too can take advantage of these parks to expand in the region. So I hope that you will take a look at Asia, you will see the opportunities which Asia offers and, in particular, you will take a look at what Singapore can do to help you to expand your business in Asia.

One significant factor which will enhance this possibility of cooperation between Poland and Singapore is the EU-Singapore Free-Trade Agreement. I mentioned it just now. We hope it will soon be ratified and brought into force, but I would just like to say that it offers many advantages to Polish and to EU companies, for example, duty-free access for all imports from EU and Poland to Singapore; removal of non-tariff barriers to businesses, for example, meat exports will be accepted if they are certified by the Polish authorities in accordance with standard requirements. Your auto companies making the auto parts, the parts need not be subjected to duplicate testing and certification once they are tested and certified in Poland. And there will be more opportunities in the services sector – financial services, maritime transport, telecommunications services and so on -- and in government procurement as well. Plus, there will be stronger protection of geographical indications. Spirits like Polish Cherry and Polish Vodka, will have the word “Polish” assured that if it says so, it must have come from Poland.

So this EU-Singapore FTA offers many advantages to Polish companies, European companies and it is also a strategically-significant signal of the way EU wants to engage the region, the way EU would like to conclude future FTAs in the region, whether bilaterally with other Southeast Asian countries, whether on a regional basis with ASEAN as a group, but this is one significant step forward, beneficial in itself, valuable in what it portends for the next several steps. So I think it is a good thing. I hope that you will encourage your Government to support the EU-Singapore FTA and to ratify it soon so that you can benefit from it.

This Business Forum is a valuable platform to bring our business communities together and to learn about the opportunities which are available in each other’s countries. So let us work together to develop the contacts, to explore the opportunities and to make the projects succeed and prosper both our economies as well as our companies. Thank you very much.”