[SINGAPORE] French President Emmanuel Macron will be making a state visit to Singapore from Thursday (May 29) evening, to commemorate 60 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
France is the first European Union member state with which Singapore established a Strategic Partnership, in 2012.
During the two-day trip, Macron will call on President Tharman Shanmugaratnam, who will host him at a state banquet, as well as meet Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, who will host him at a dinner.
Macron and PM Wong will witness the exchange of several memoranda of understanding in areas including defence and security, legal, artificial intelligence and transport.
The visit will mark the first meeting between the French president and Singaporean prime minister since PM Wong took the country’s top position in May 2024. They previously met when then deputy prime minister Wong officially visited France in April 2024.
Macron will also deliver the keynote speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue on Friday.
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The French President will be accompanied by his wife Brigitte Macron and a delegation of French ministers and senior officials on the trip.
Singapore is the last stop on Macron’s roughly week-long visit to South-east Asia, on which he also visited Vietnam and Indonesia.
Strong ties
Over the decades, Singapore and France have maintained strong bilateral relations, with economic, defence and education exchanges.
France is Singapore’s second-largest goods trading partner in the EU, with total bilateral trade in goods standing at S$21.5 billion in 2024. It is seventh-largest on Singapore’s list of EU services trading partners, with trade in services at S$8.1 billion in 2023.
France is also Singapore’s fifth-largest EU investor.
The two countries have engaged economically under the EU-Singapore Free Trade Agreement since 2019, and will soon also work together under the EU-Singapore Digital Trade Agreement.
When it comes to defence and security, Singapore and France have long collaborated in areas of training, military exercises and defence technology. Singapore is the only non-North Atlantic Treaty Organization country with a military presence in France.
They also share expertise in areas including counterterrorism and cybercrime, under a homeland security strategic cooperation plan.
As for education and research, the Ministry of Education Language Centre conducts French language classes and exchange programmes for pre-tertiary students, while Singapore’s institutes of higher learning partner French institutions to facilitate staff and student exchanges as well as research and knowledge exchange.
Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology and Research research institutes also work with French institutes and companies across the biomedical sciences, aerospace and consumer businesses fields.
