China Premier Li Qiang to make two-day official visit to Singapore
Mr Li and Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong will witness the exchange of memoranda of understanding and agreements across several areas.
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SINGAPORE: China’s Premier Li Qiang will make an official visit to Singapore from Saturday (Oct 25) to Sunday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) announced on Friday.
The two-day visit, which comes at the invitation of Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, will be Mr Li’s first official visit to Singapore.
“Together with Prime Minister Wong's official visit to China in June this year, this exchange of official visits celebrates the 35th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Singapore and China in 2025, and reflects our excellent bilateral ties,” MFA said in a press release.
Both sides established diplomatic relations in 1990. In 2023, relations were upgraded to an “All-Round High-Quality Future-Oriented Partnership”, following a meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and then-Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in Beijing.
On Saturday, Mr Li will receive a ceremonial welcome and hold a bilateral meeting with Mr Wong, who is also finance minister.
Both leaders will witness the exchange of memoranda of understanding and agreements across a few areas, such as green development, digital economy and training and development, according to MFA.
Later that evening, Mr Wong will host an official dinner in Mr Li’s honour.
Mr Li will then call on Acting President Eddie Teo on Sunday. Mr Teo is the chairman of the Council of Presidential Advisers and will exercise the functions of the office of the president while President Tharman Shanmugaratnam is overseas on leave.
The Chinese premier will then engage Singapore and Chinese business leaders at the Singapore-China Business Roundtable, hosted by Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong, who is also Minister for Trade and Industry.
LONGSTANDING RELATIONS
Singapore and China’s relations are broad-based, underpinned by regular high-level exchanges and robust institutional frameworks.
There has been a steady flow of high-level engagements from both sides. For instance, Mr Wong met Mr Xi and Mr Li in Beijing in June this year. DPM Gan also met Vice President Han Zheng and Vice Premier He Lifeng in the Chinese capital last month.
Both sides’ leaders also meet during the annual Joint Council for Bilateral Cooperation.
On the economic front, China has been Singapore's largest merchandise trading partner since 2013 – contributing 13.2 per cent of its global merchandise trade last year – and the country’s third-largest trading partner for services in 2023.
Since 2013, Singapore has been China's largest foreign investor in terms of investment flow. Total bilateral trade last year amounted to S$170 billion, a 1.8 per cent year-on-year increase.
Singapore also received 3.08 million visitors from China last year.
The high-level economic engagement also includes three government-to-government projects – the Suzhou Industrial Park established in 1994, the Sino-Singapore Tianjin-Eco City launched in 2008, and the Chongqing Connectivity Initiative which marks its 10th anniversary this year.
