Why Asean matters more than ever to the UK and Singapore

The Republic’s role as a gateway to the bloc and Britain’s accession to the CPTPP expand mutual opportunity

Open, resilient trade

The UK-Singapore Free Trade Agreement, our Digital Economy Agreement and our work towards a modern bilateral investment treaty all reflect a shared commitment to open and resilient trade, at a time when protectionism is on the rise elsewhere.

Singapore’s role as a gateway to Asean’s wider market of more than 680 million people, and the UK’s accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), mean that our economic ties now sit within a much larger architecture of mutual opportunity.

Increasingly, supply-chain resilience and economic security are as important to us all as raw growth figures.

That architecture is already delivering. UK-Asean trade has grown by more than 17 per cent in the past year alone, and the UK is now Asean’s fourth-largest source of foreign direct investment.

Singapore is central to this story, acting as the platform through which UK businesses reach the rest of Asean, and helping UK experts in paperless trade, digital identity and secure data-sharing access Asean’s Digital Economy Framework Agreement and growing digital economy.

Partnership for a changing world

Alongside the extraordinary opportunities, we also face challenges. Conflict, instability, disruption to critical trade routes and intensifying competition over technology have a global impact, from the Euro-Atlantic to the Indo-Pacific.

What happens in the Strait of Hormuz affects shipping through the Strait of Malacca. Events in the South China Sea, through which a third of global trade passes, affect households in Britain just as in Singapore.

This is why Asean matters to the UK, and why Singapore’s support for the UK’s partnership with the bloc has been so important. Asean is the world’s fifth-largest economy, home to almost 700 million people across eleven countries, and it plays a crucial stabilising and convening role.

As one of Asean’s founding members, Singapore has consistently championed the open, rules-based order and the principle of Asean centrality that underpin regional and global stability.

This July in Manila, with Singapore’s support, our Foreign Secretary Edward Miliband marked the fifth anniversary of our Asean Dialogue Partnership with a new Plan of Action for 2027 to 2031.

They celebrated the UK joining the Asean Regional Forum, which is the Indo-Pacific’s top multilateral security platform.

Keeping our nations safe

Our defence and security relationship with Singapore, anchored by the Five Power Defence Arrangements, is going from strength to strength. Exercises such as Bersama Lima demonstrate our enduring commitment to interoperability and collective security in the Indo-Pacific.

Beyond traditional defence cooperation, we have built a modern security partnership, including a first-of-its-kind collaboration between Singapore’s Digital and Intelligence Service and UK counterparts on cyber defence.

Singapore’s leading role in the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies’ Digital Defence Symposium reflects its role as a convening nation, using cooperation to keep all citizens, critical infrastructure and economies safe from transnational digital threats.

None of this happens in isolation.

Our partnership with Singapore and the security cooperation we are building with Asean reinforce each other as we tackle threats which go beyond this region, whether that is organised crime or cyber-enabled fraud.

Building climate resilience and energy security

South-east Asia sits at the heart of the world’s climate challenge, vulnerable to climate shocks and grappling with fast-growing energy demand even as it seeks to decarbonise.

Singapore, a green finance hub, is a natural partner for the UK as we pursue our ambition to be a clean energy superpower.

Our Green Economy Framework, agreed in 2023, has opened up practical collaboration in green transport, low-carbon energy technologies and carbon markets.

The UK’s strengths in offshore wind and grid infrastructure make us a natural collaborator for Singapore on regional initiatives such as the Asean Power Grid.

Our partnership with Singapore will be crucial to delivering the energy resilience that South-east Asia needs.

There is a funding gap in the region estimated at almost S$270 billion annually (until 2030) for climate resilient infrastructure, far more than public finance alone can meet.

To help close that gap, the UK has partnered with Singapore on the Financing Asia’s Transition Partnership, which aims to mobilise up to S$7 billion from public, private and philanthropic partners for transition opportunities across Asia.

Through British International Investment, the UK has committed S$115 million to two of its funds, and through our Asean-UK Green Transition Fund, we are mobilising over S$250 million more, helping turn regional ambitions, such as the Asean Power Grid, into bankable projects.

2027: what next?

As Singapore prepares to assume the Asean chairmanship in 2027, this is a moment of real opportunity, both for the bloc and for the UK-Singapore partnership.

Our message is simple: The UK is committed to Asean for the long term, and Singapore is central to that commitment.

This is not a relationship of grand gestures but of practical delivery – in economic growth and security, defence, climate action and in the ties that bind our two countries together.

Source: BusinessTime