PM Lee Hsien Loong at the Official Lunch hosted in honour of Netherlands PM Mark Rutte

Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.

I offer my warmest welcome to Prime Minister Rutte and his delegation. I am very glad to reciprocate the gracious hospitality I received when I visited the Netherlands two years ago for the Nuclear Security Summit in the spring of 2014.

Singapore’s ties with the Netherlands go back into history. You are no strangers to this region. You first arrived in Southeast Asia in 1596 in Sumatra. You were in Malacca, for a century and a half, from around the 1600s, if my history serves me right, and you contributed to the region’s maritime and trade development. Of course, you were in the Dutch East Indies for even longer, and that is where you have just come from Indonesia.

Dutch companies were here very early, and have continued to grow their presence here. I have just attended Royal Dutch Shell’s 125th anniversary in Singapore. Shell built its first oil storage facility in Singapore at the end of the 19th century. It built the first refinery at Pulau Bukom in 1961, and it received the very first Pioneer Certificate, a tax holiday certificate that Singapore presented for this refinery. Philips was among the first companies, manufacturing companies, to set up shop in the 1970s, and it partners with us in apprenticeship programmes.

When Singapore became independent, the Netherlands were also among the first countries to recognise our independence. So I am very glad that last year, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations. These are broad and deep relations. We work closely in business, education, defence, the environment, culture and the arts, and many other areas.

Our economic ties are strong. The Netherlands is Singapore’s largest European investor with close to S$70 billion worth of investments; and is our third largest trading partner in the EU. We have more than 1,300 Dutch companies based here, including household names like Unilever, DSM, VOPAK and of course, Heineken. And Singapore companies such as Keppel Offshore & Marine, Olam and CWT Limited are present in the Netherlands.

Our armed forces and security agencies work together. SAF had deployed medical and surgical teams to the Dutch-led Field Hospital in Tarin Kowt, in Afghanistan between 2008 to 2010. Netherlands participated in our PSI, Proliferation Security Initiative exercise, just recently in September. I am also pleased that our cybersecurity agencies have signed an MOU in July. It is a new area of cooperation, an important one. Our institutions and companies are working on joint projects in traditional sectors like marine and offshore, logistics, petrochemical and IT sectors.

We cooperate in energy and water, where you have deep expertise. We also work in emerging areas like driverless vehicles and Smart Mobility, I mentioned Cyber-security just now, and Fintech and robotics. We admire the Dutch for your enterprise and innovation.

Last week, we announced our intention to reclaim land around Pulau Tekong, one of our offshore islands using the polder method, very much a Dutch innovation, for the first time.

We hope we can do more together because we have similar outlooks. We are both tolerant and egalitarian societies, our people are open and direct. We share similar outward-looking perspectives. We want to promote a freer trade and international cooperation, at a time when many countries are turning inwards seeking to repudiate globalisation and shut out the world. We believe that staying open and ahead of changes is the right strategy.

This shared ethos and perspective explains why Dr Albert Winsemius, played such an integral role in Singapore’s development. He led the UN mission to Singapore in 1960, served as our Chief Economic Adviser for more than two decades, working closely with our founding fathers, Mr Lee Kuan Yew, Dr Goh Keng Swee and Mr Hon Sui Sen.

He was frank and direct, and took a deep and personal interest in our development. When we became independent, he recommended we keep the statue of Sir Stamford Raffles to send investors a positive signal that this is a country that is at peace with itself, proud of itself and rational about its future. When we left Malaysia and our outlook was grim, he gave us good and practical advice on how we could plug Singapore into the global economic system.

We are eternally grateful to Dr Winsemius for helping to transform Singapore into a manufacturing, financial and aviation hub.

He struck up a great friendship with Mr Lee Kuan Yew. Once he told Mr Lee that even though he had worked in Germany, Switzerland, Portugal and Greece, he always felt they were different from the Dutch even though Netherlands had been one of the German countries until 1648, but not with Singapore. He could not explain why, and was puzzled over this, and finally concluded there was a “Congruence of the Calvinistic and Confucian philosophy of life”, so we are Calvinists in Southeast Asia and perhaps you are Confucius in Europe.

That is one reason why our bilateral relations are strong and why I am confident they will continue to grow.

I would like to thank the Prime Minister for visiting Singapore. I hope that friendship and cooperation between our two countries and peoples will continue to flourish and endure.

Now, Prime Minister, Ladies and gentlemen, may I now invite you to join me in a toast to His Majesty King Willem-Alexander, the good health and success of PM Rutte, the enduring friendship between Singapore and the Netherlands.

Cheers, and thank you very much.

* * * * *