Opening Remarks By President Tharman Shanmugaratnam at the Mexico-Singapore Business Forum, Tuesday, 2 December 2025, JW Marriott Ballroom

Excellencies,

 Distinguished guests,

 Ladies and gentlemen,

  1.         Buenas tardes, good afternoon. It is a great pleasure to see friends and partners from both the government and the business community here today, Singapore businesses who are taking an active interest in Mexico.

 History coming to life

 2.         We mark the 50^th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Singapore and Mexico this year — a milestone that reflects a journey of friendship and shared purpose, that in fact began well before our formal ties were established.

 3.         It indeed goes back to the Manila Galleon some five hundred years ago, the trading ships that carried silver from Mexico to Asia, and silk and spices in return. It was the first great trans-Pacific trade.

 4.         So too, the Spanish currency, in fact Mexican silver pieces, circulated widely across Asia in the 1800s. They were the most trusted and widely used coins, from southern China down to Cochinchina (Vietnam), Siam (Thailand) and Burma, and used extensively in British Malaya and Singapore. Hence when Stamford Raffles of the British East India Company established Singapore as a trading post in 1819, he paid the Sultan who was the local ruler not in British pounds, but in Mexican silver coins.^[1] Even in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), the coins were restamped by the colonial government to legitimise them for circulation.

 5.         Much of this history has been forgotten in Asia. But it is worth recalling, not only because it is interesting, but because history can give confidence as we open new lanes between Mexico and Latin America and Asia.

  Mexico and Singapore share common beliefs

 6.         The Mexico-Singapore relationship is anchored in a belief that we do better for ourselves by running open, outward-looking economies, and by upholding a rules-based trading system. We have known in our bones that prosperity comes from venturing out and connecting with the wider world.

 7.         We are now set to strengthen our ties with each other, and to help bring our two regions together.

 8.         We know that a weakened and less predictable international economic order is very likely here to stay.  

 9.         It makes it all the more important for the business community to diversify and develop wide networks, that provide resilience amidst uncertainty.

 10.      That’s also why we are growing new regional arrangements for goods, technologies and investments to flow freely. The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, or CPTPP, that Singapore and Mexico built, is a major such network, that is now also looking to cooperate with other regional networks like the EU.

 11.      And it’s also why the Pacific Alliance-Singapore Free Trade Agreement, or PASFTA, becomes important. In many ways, the PASFTA will open the ways for a new, broader sea lane — one that connects Southeast Asia and Latin America more directly than ever before.

12.      The business opportunities will be significant as we connect our two regions - opportunities in food businesses, in growing new and resilient supply chains for manufacturing, in shifting to a low-carbon economy, and in embedding AI and raising productivity in virtually every sector of the economy.

 13.      Singapore and Mexico are catalysts in this regard. Singapore companies are now exploring new business opportunities in Mexico, in sectors such as advanced manufacturing, clinical testing, ports and infrastructure, energy, agri-commodities, resorts, and digital and fintech solutions.

 14.      Likewise, Mexican companies are looking to Singapore as a trusted gateway to Asia — a launchpad to reach the fast-growing ASEAN market of a combined GDP of US$3.6 trillion and over 650 million consumers. Singapore offers your companies advanced financial services, innovation ecosystems that they can plug into, and a rules-based, reliable base from which they can expand in the wider region.

 15.      Yesterday I announced the Singapore Government’s decision to establish a resident embassy in Mexico City, our second in Latin America. We hope it will serve as a bridge and a resource, nurturing partnerships, and helping to catalyse connections between our businesses and people.

16.      I’m optimistic. I’m optimistic when I see who’s gathered here, when I listen to business leaders, optimistic coming out of my discussions with President Claudia Sheinbaum yesterday. And I’m optimistic because there is a new logic in global commerce is working in our favour - the logic is of diversification and regional and inter-regional connectivity.

17.      Singapore and Mexico are now poised to be catalysts in making this a reality – a new reality of how business is conducted across the Pacific. So once again, I thank CCE, COMCE, the SBF and all of you for working hard to make this possible. Thank you very much.

[1] Source: “A Survey of Singapore’s Monetary History” by MAS Economics Department, 2000.