Minister for Foreign Affairs Dr Vivian Balakrishnan's Remarks at the Opening Ceremony of the 5th Singapore-Africa Ministerial Exchange Visit, 26 August 2025

Minister Vivian Balakrishnan: Honourable Ministers, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, a warm welcome to Singapore – a tropical island, a tiny city-state in the heart of Southeast Asia.

We are launching the fifth edition of the Singapore-Africa Ministerial Exchange Visit. This series first began in 2014. What we are trying to do is to foster close dialogue with our friends from Africa. 37 ministers and deputy ministers have attended the first four iterations of the Exchange Visit and this year, we are deeply honoured to have fourteen countries represented here. It is especially significant for us because this year is our 60^th anniversary as an independent country. We thank you for the honour of your presence with us. I want to bid a very warm welcome to our friends from Botswana, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Madagascar, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra-Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe. Thank you for making the long journey. There is no easy way to reach us from your continent but thank you for making the effort. I hope you will have an enjoyable, meaningful time with us.

The theme for this year's Ministerial Exchange Visit is “Progressing Together towards a Sustainable Future”. Through this programme, we hope that we will be able to have candid, open, sincere exchanges of views on our respective countries’ development journeys so far, on our priorities, on our experiences – both positive and negative – and to explore potential collaboration in the future. We all know that Africa is key for humanity's sustainable future. With a population of 1.3 billion in Africa, of which 70% are below the age of 30, and with the rapid urbanisation that is clear to everyone who has visited Africa at an average annual rate of 3.5%, and needless to say, the abundant natural resources which you have been blessed with and the expanding new field of clean energy –there is only one conclusion: Africa is brimming with potential. The future of humanity does depend on developments in Africa.

Cast your eyes to the East, and you are now in the heart of Southeast Asia. Southeast Asia is also a young and fast-growing region, and collectively, ASEAN – the Association of Southeast Asian Nations – is the fifth largest economy globally and our economy is expected to double in the next two decades. Over 300 million people in the ASEAN region are under the age of 35, which means about half our population. Beyond the national and regional economic integration, ASEAN is also now pursuing opportunities in the digital and green economies. The point is that there is great potential for even closer African and Southeast Asian cooperation. It is not enough to just say that it is possible; we need to get a move on realising this potential. In fact, in the spirit of candour, ASEAN’s current trade with Africa is quite modest. Only about 2.2% of its total trade with the world. Considering the potential, considering the size, that number should be much, much larger.

I am glad that many companies from both regions are participating in the 8^th edition of the Africa-Singapore Business Forum. This forum brings businesses together to explore opportunities and to look for synergies between our two regions. Our governments can support businesses by creating the supporting legal and policy architecture. We in Singapore have been steadily negotiating and signing a network of Air Services Agreements, Bilateral Investment Treaties, Avoidance of Double Taxation Agreements, and I hope that we will soon be able to negotiate and work towards more Free Trade Agreements. I encourage all the countries you represent to consider acceding to the United Nations Convention on International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation. This is sometimes called the “Singapore Convention”. This treaty promotes the use of mediation to resolve cross-border commercial disputes by ensuring that settlements reached through mediation are binding and enforceable in signatory countries. This provision will be a major assurance for businesses who are investing mutually across both regions. The key theme behind all these networks of agreements is to facilitate the exchange of people, ideas, capital and opportunities. And by getting that done, to expand areas for synergy and to accelerate development both in Africa and in Southeast Asia.

In fact, Singapore and Africa's cooperation extends beyond trade and investments. It includes sectors such as capacity-building and dealing with both the challenge and the opportunities of climate change. Last month, the International Court of Justice described climate change as an “urgent and existential threat” and it is one that all countries have an obligation to prevent. This planetary crisis requires urgent and collective action. Singapore has already signed several Implementation Agreements and Memoranda of Understanding with several African countries in order to collaborate on carbon credits under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. These countries include Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Rwanda, Senegal and Zambia. We believe such agreements promote high integrity carbon markets, achieve tangible emissions reductions, and they support sustainable development in your countries. They also benefit the local communities by enhancing energy efficiency, reducing waste, and more importantly, creating jobs.

We all know that our country's best assets are our people. Human resource development is an area that all of us prioritise. Under the Singapore Cooperation Programme, more than 13,000 African officials have attended courses under this programme over the years. We hope that you will continue to find this programme useful, relevant, and we welcome feedback and ideas on how to improve this programme further.

The warm friendship between Singapore and your countries has been sustained over decades by interactions with successive generations of leaders. At a personal level, I can recall my visits to South Africa over the years negotiating climate change agreements. I recall the visit this year for the G20 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, and to Kenya and South Africa when I accompanied my then Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in May 2023. I also accompanied then Prime Minister Lee to Kigali in June 2022. We were honoured to host Rwanda's President Paul Kagame last September, South African Deputy President Paul Mashatile in December 2023, and Tanzanian Vice-President Philip Mpango in 2021. In fact, you may be aware that Ghana President John Mahama is currently on a State Visit to Singapore and he spoke this morning at the opening session of the Africa-Singapore Business Forum. Such meetings, these exchanges, these visits, these study and trade missions, constantly refresh and expand the bonds between our countries. They help us understand one another better and it will benefit our people. In fact, you can see that this week is very much an Africa-themed week in Singapore with all the numerous meetings going on.

Your Excellencies, we live in difficult and turbulent times. It is the end of a world order which we have been familiar with for eight decades. We are transiting into a new world order. It has not fully taken shape, and we know that it is in this interregnum, this transition, that things can become more turbulent and difficult. This is all the more reason why we need to double-down on our partnerships between Singapore and Africa, and Southeast Asia and Africa, forge new partnerships, and strengthen existing ones. We cherish our steadfast ties with all our African brothers and sisters for the past 60 years of Singapore's independence. It is our duty and our privilege to ensure that these relationships continue to flourish and grow.

My dear brothers and sisters, thank you for honouring us with your presence and we look forward to giving you a meaningful time. Let us focus on the future, focus on doing good for our citizens and to make sure the future is one that is sustainable, peaceful and prosperous. I wish all of you success in the future and for the progress and happiness and peace of your countries.

Thank you for joining us today.

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