The visit was made at the invitation of Minister for Foreign Affairs and Law K. Shanmugam as part of the S.R. Nathan Fellowship.
During his stay, Deputy PM Ninh paid a courtesy visit to Singaporean PM Lee Hsien Loong, and held meetings with Deputy PM and Minister for Finance Tharman Shanmugaratnam and other senior officials.
During the meetings, both sides expressed their delight at the burgeoning ties between the two countries.
They agreed that the newly established strategic partnership, reached during PM Lee’s visit to Vietnam in September, is a historic milestone in bilateral ties, opening up new opportunities for the two sides to further expand and deepen co-operation.
PM Lee pledged to work closely with Vietnam to encourage Singaporean enterprises to invest in Phu Quoc Island, calling on Vietnamese officials to provide favourable conditions and clear information on investment policies, administration procedures and land planning in Phu Quoc.
The Singaporean officials stressed the importance of human resource training in the context of international economic integration, declaring that Singapore is dedicated to education and training co-operation with Vietnam and that it would help the country to train the skilled workforce of tomorrow.
On regional and international ties, the two sides expressed pleasure with the level of bilateral co-ordination within the ASEAN framework, the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC), the Asia-Europe Economic Meeting (ASEM), and the United Nations.
They agreed to continue close co-ordination on issues relating to the region’s peace and stability, including disputes in the East Sea.
The Singaporean side pledged to continue supporting Vietnam in the negotiation process for a Trans-Pacific Partnership to ensure that any agreement is fairly balanced and suitably beneficial to all parties.
