Yesterday, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo and Singapore Minister for Trade and Industry Gan Kim Yong met to discuss early outcomes and next steps on implementing the U.S.-Singapore Partnership for Growth and Innovation (PGI), which they signed last month in Washington.

Secretary Raimondo and Minister Gan issued the following statement:

“We reaffirm our commitment to collaborate through the Partnership for Growth and Innovation. We celebrated our early progress, including joint activities organized at the Singapore International Cyber Week, Singapore International Energy Week, and the Singapore Week of Innovation and Technology.” 

“We have established a framework for periodic PGI meetings that will convene government and industry leaders to inform our approach and drive commercially meaningful outcomes for the businesses and citizens of the United States and Singapore. We are also finalizing a work plan of joint U.S.-Singapore activities under the PGI’s four pillars: digital economy, clean energy and environmental technology, advanced manufacturing, and healthcare. PGI activities will address shared policy priorities, such as standards and supply chain resilience, and leverage regional networks such as the Southeast Asia Manufacturing Alliance.”

“For example, under the digital economy pillar, we can help our small businesses access new markets and digital solutions by collaborating on common technical standards and interoperable systems, such as e-invoicing, e-payments, and mechanisms that build interoperability between different data protection and privacy regimes and facilitate cross border data flows such as the APEC Cross Border Privacy Rules System. We can also exchange expertise on operationalizing principles for trustworthy and responsible AI with the aim of building interoperability of AI governance frameworks, as more U.S. and Singapore companies become active in this emerging space. Under the clean energy and environmental technology pillar, we can create a regional roundtable for businesses to network across the region, and explore room for collaboration in areas such as clean energy deployment, carbon capture, and utilization.”

“We also agreed to explore opportunities for joint PGI programming in 2022 at relevant events, such as the Singapore-hosted World Cities Summit, Singapore International Energy Week, and the SelectUSA Investment Summit. This programming would convene government officials, subject matter experts, U.S. and Singapore business leaders, and regional stakeholders to strengthen trade and investment ties through networking and commercial policy discussions.”

“On trade standards, our teams discussed plans to support a U.S.-ASEAN Business Council-hosted regional digital trade standards workshop in December. They also agreed to conduct government and industry outreach on the findings of a U.S. Department of Commerce-funded 3D printing standards report released in October 2021 to help drive commercialization of cutting-edge technologies.”

“We look forward to reporting additional activities and initiatives as the Partnership continues to develop.”

Secretary Raimondo and Minister Gan co-chaired a PGI industry roundtable with U.S. and Singapore business leaders, co-organised by the American Chamber of Commerce and the Singapore Business Federation. The roundtable promoted commercial partnerships and exchanges, and collected ideas for the work plan of joint U.S.-Singapore activities under the PGI.