Transcript of the Reply by Foreign Minister George Yeo to Questions in Parliament on the detention of granite-carrying vessels, 9 April 2007

Ms Lee Bee Wah: To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs whether his Ministry has received any update on the status of the 13 granite-carrying vessels bound for Singapore which were detained by the Indonesian Navy for allegedly carrying sand and whether Singapore is still freely importing granite from Indonesia.

REPLY:

Mr Speaker Sir,

Indonesia has not banned the export of granite. However, there has been supply disruptions in recent weeks due to the detention of several barges and tugboats carrying granite bound for Singapore since February.

2 When I met Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda in Nuremburg last month on 15 March, he told me that an inter-departmental team from Jakarta had visited the Riaus to investigate the detention of the tugboats and barges. Minister Hassan assured me that the Indonesian team's verification process would be transparent. I agreed with him that transparency is important. Transparency in such matters is good for trade and investment and in the national interest of Indonesia.

3 On 5 March 2007, MFA sought clarification on the detained barges through a Diplomatic Note and subsequently followed up with two reminders on 12 March and 26 March. DEPLU (the Indonesian Foreign Ministry) replied on Thursday, 5 April 2007, last week via a Diplomatic Note giving us the inspection results. According to the Note, 22 tugboats and barges were detained in February and in March. However, only 7 were alleged to have violated the land sand ban by carrying land sand or a mixture of land sand and granite chips. The rest were detained on charges of violating various other Indonesian laws, shipping regulations and customs regulations. DEPLU informed us that these cases will now be taken up through the legal process in Indonesia. We are studying DEPLU's response and will seek further clarification from the Indonesian Government if necessary.

SUPPLEMENTARY QUESTIONS

Supplementary Question 1
Dr Lily Neo:

Thank you Mr Speaker Sir. May I seek Minister's comment on the article by Asiamoney magazine, entitled "The Singapore Sand Storm", which said that despite Singapore's extraordinary advances, it is still vulnerable and Singapore being the "triple-A rated First World State" can still be bullied by its big developing neighbours and Singapore is "little more than a 10-stone weakling, defenceless against having sand kicked in its face". Can the Minister reassure this House on the steps taken by the capable team of civil servants and Ministers to ensure that Singapore, the "little red dot" with no natural resources, is not a weakling nor "defenceless against having sand kicked in its face"? Thank you.

Answer:

Mr Speaker Sir, I think we are used to being called names and described sometimes in comical idiomatic ways. The responses to some of the disruptions we have faced had been discussed in this House and I believe Minister Mah Bow Tan will be talking in greater detail about them in answer to the following question. It is true, Mr Speaker Sir, that we are not a "200-pound Hulk". Maybe we are small, but we are not without capabilities and our gongfu is not bad. If sand is kicked in our face, the person may end up with a mouthful of sand in his own mouth.

Supplementary Question 2
Ms Lee Bee Wah:

Mr Speaker Sir, I would like to ask the Minister how long more we have to wait and is there any action, any alternative that we can take. Thank you. [Minister: In particular, which is the Honourable Member referring to - the granite?] About those retained barges.

Answer:

The process is now in the open. It will be taken through legal channels in Indonesia. Three of the barge owners are Singaporean. If they want our help, we will help them in whatever way we can. It is good that the matter is now transparent. I'm sure that they'll get their own lawyers. If charges will be pressed, they will defend themselves and the matter should be properly resolved in this way, according to the laws of Indonesia.

Supplementary Question 3
Mr Low Thia Kiang:

I would like to ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs how has he taken this whole episode of the Indonesian reaction to the sand and granite ban on imports and obviously it is coming against us. Is that a diplomatic failure on the part of Singapore or on the part of ASEAN, in which we are supposed to be good neighbours and we help them a lot.

Answer:

Mr Speaker Sir, this is primarily a bilateral matter. If any country, in effecting a ban on exports, does so in a way which contravenes the WTO or ASEAN's economic agreements, then we can invoke dispute mechanisms within those agreements. But I believe that it is within Indonesia's rights, for environmental reasons, to ban the export of sand, and it has done so, for environmental reasons. I know there have been Indonesian legislators and officials who have talked about various motives for banning the export of sand, but the official reason given to us was for environmental reasons and we have got to take it at face value. As to what we can do in response, well the key is that we must be diversified and we must have our own strengths. The ban of sand and the disruption of granite supply have caused some disruption to the construction industry, caused some inconvenience to Singaporeans, but I think we are able to cope, and Minister Mah Bow Tan has explained in some detail in this House how we've been able to cope.

But if you look at our bilateral relations with Indonesia on the whole, it is a big account and we are mutually dependent in so many ways. There are specific problems here and there and it is best we manage them as discrete problems rather than linking everything together. So for example, I've informed this House before that on the Extradition Treaty and Defence Cooperation, we are negotiating these in parallel. The negotiations are ongoing and I hope they can be resolved in a reasonably short time. We are helping Indonesia in developing the Special Economic Zone in Batam, Bintan and Karimun; we are helping them on Avian Flu in Tangerang near Jakarta; we are helping with the haze problem in the province of Jambi; and in so many areas we are cooperating. So it is important to set these problems in context.

Supplementary Question 4
Mdm Ho Geok Choo

I would like to ask Minister to comment on the recent blast of the granite quarry on Karimun. How it will affect the supply to our construction industry, measures taken by our Government with regards to other sources of supply and also a third question would be, beyond the possibility of sabotage, what long term plans or strategies would our Government be looking into where sand, granite and Indonesia is concerned?

Answer:

I do not know much about the explosion at the granite quarry in Karimun apart from what I've read in the newspapers and from some reports which I've received from Jakarta. The Indonesian police is investigating into the matter and it is best that we leave it to them. If the Singapore owner requests our assistance in the Foreign Ministry, then of course we will help them. Mr Low Thia Kiang asked earlier, Mr Speaker Sir, whether in fact the problem we are now having with Indonesia reflects a certain diplomatic failure. Well, I think that is for others to judge.

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