Transcript of Minister for Foreign Affairs George Yeo's remarks at the Opening Ceremony of the Chancery of the Singapore Embassy in Jakarta, 10 March 2009

Pak Hassan,

Excellencies,

Dear Friends,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am delighted to be here to join all of you this afternoon for a simple ceremony which is to launch these new premises and to bless it. It is one of our biggest chancery buildings, maybe the biggest. Singapore is a small country, we do not have many missions and these missions are usually of modest size. This counts as probably our biggest missions in the world which should not be surprising considering of how close Singapore and Indonesia are to each other. It has not always been so. I remember when I was in primary school, our school maps ended with the Straits of Singapore, below that was terra incognita. It was strange. Between the British and the Dutch, they divided the archipelago, we were in one sphere and Indonesia was in the other sphere. And I think it was reflected on the other side because when I see Indonesian maps of the archipelago - Indonesia is all coloured, and Singapore and Malaysia are white in colour. But with regional integration, it is all changing and changing dramatically. Of course, changes happen at the political level and extend into all sectors and go all the way down. I was at Saint Patrick's School which at that time was next to the sea and I remember one day, the teacher brought us to the beach and said, "Look, you see the land on the horizon? That is Indonesia." To us, it was like "Wow!" Now, everyday so many ferries go up and down and we think nothing about visiting each other, which is just as well and the way it should be. When we were going to open this embassy, I asked Pak Hassan if he could give his blessings to this new building and all those who work here, to also symbolise the very close relations between the two countries, an expression of our common destiny.

Just this morning, I was at DEPLU for the signing of our border agreement in the west. Not a very long border but still, it is good to demarcate where we can. We still got some work to do in the east and around Pedra Branca and that I hope it will begin soon. In all spheres now, we work closely together. On all the important issues, Indonesia and Singapore share common positions. I must say that I enjoy working with Pak Hassan. It is always easy to meet and talk about our common problems because invariably there is a meeting of minds. Thank you, Pak Hassan for joining us this afternoon. I am very grateful for your presence. I thank also all the other ASEAN ambassadors and the representatives who are here, and our physical visitors and neighbours - Poland on one side and India on the other for joining us in this little celebration. Thank you very much.

. . . . .