SINGAPORE: The Duke of York – second son of UK's Queen Elizabeth – is in Singapore.

Prince Andrew, who is also UK's Special Representative for International Trade and Investment, is here to find out more about UK investments in Singapore.

He visited Shell, which has an investment of S$9.6 billion in Singapore, and UK company Lucite International, which is currently constructing a S$380-million plant to produce acrylic-based products.

The plant will start operations in January 2009.

The UK is Singapore's largest foreign direct investor with cumulative investments of over S$50 billion.

Trade between UK and Singapore has been growing in the last few years – last year's growth figure was 11 percent and total trade amounted to over S$28 billion.

Prince Andrew also met President S R Nathan at the Istana, before meeting British and Singapore researchers at the Biopolis.

The researchers have all gone through the UK-Singapore Partners in Science Initiative, which was launched three years ago.

Under this initiative, both countries developed scientific collaborations through workshops.

They have also worked together to build up scientific capacity in developing countries in Southeast Asia.

Since it was established, there have been 50 funding proposals submitted, more than 35 new collaborations and many workshops held on subjects such as immunology, aerospace engineering and aquaculture.

Many Singapore researchers have also travelled to the UK with grants from the Collaboration Development Awards.

Key to this collaboration is the work by Singapore's Agency for Science Technology and Research (A*STAR).

In recognition of its support, a partnership award was presented to the Agency.

Prince Andrew will be visiting Malaysia next.


- CNA/so