Transcript of Remarks by President Tharman Shanmugaratnam at the Overseas Singaporean Reception in Brussels, Belgium on 23 March 2025

    Thank you, Ambassador Lim Hong Huai, and thanks to everyone for coming to meet myself, my wife Ms Jane Ittogi, Minister Chee Hong Tat and MOS Sun Xueling, and two of our Members of Parliament, Vikram Nair and Sharael Taha.

    Whenever we travel on State Visits, it’s an opportunity for us to learn about the experiences of Singaporeans in various parts of the world, apart from building bilateral relations through our official meetings.

    Meeting with Singaporeans is always very worthwhile. Listening to their different experiences and being able to take something back to Singapore when we go home – about life here, about what you are doing as Singaporeans to add to the societies you’re in, and some of your ideas about Singapore, which we should also take back. 

    By the way, just to add a little tidbit – our emcee Yao Nian is someone whom I’ve known from a long time ago, from almost 20 years ago. He was a volunteer together with several of his other schoolmates in the constituency I was running, and they started a programme that continues to run till today, a wonderful programme with kids from disadvantaged backgrounds.

    I mention it, not just incidentally – I mention it because actually, we are all connected by wanting to do good – at home in Singapore, sometimes a small part of our own society, but also wherever we go in the world. And that should be our Singapore credo – wanting to do good, with whatever expertise or ability we have, wanting to add to an enterprise or to a society that you’re in. That way, I think we are also, in a very quiet way, making a statement about what Singapore is. It’s not just about individuals. It’s a society that wants better for our own people, but we also want to contribute to the world.

    Luxembourg and Belgium are small countries like us. The Netherlands is also a small country. But it has to be remembered that these were three countries out of the six that originally formed the European Union. And small countries continue to be at the core of refreshing and upholding the international order at a time when it is becoming less orderly. It’s a very important role that we all play.

    We may be small, but when we work together, and work together with larger countries as well to try to find common ground and build consensus, we are playing a not insignificant role – in keeping multilateralism alive, adapting it for new times, but really, making sure that this doesn’t ever become a world in which might is right and only the most powerful decide on the future. We have to be at the table as small nations, because we add something. And that’s our thinking when we meet our friends in Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands, and all the other small countries – we know we can add something.

    This year is significant because it’s the 50th anniversary of our diplomatic relations with Luxembourg; next year will be our 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations with Belgium; and this year is also our 60th anniversary of relations with Netherlands. So it’s a significant time.

    Today is also significant because it is the 10th anniversary of Minister Mentor (MM) Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s passing away. It holds much significance because he, more than anyone else, earned Singapore a place in the world, at a time when we were an island that just become a nation, and had not many friends in the world. And we really had to persuade countries, large and small, that we were a trusted partner, that they could work with us, they could invest in Singapore, we would hold our side of the bargain.

   And through Mr Lee’s force of personality, his intellect and just going out there and meeting and talking to people – political leaders, corporate leaders – he and his colleagues, and some of our top civil servants at the time, really put Singapore on the map. Successive leaders, civil servants, entrepreneurs, business leaders, have since then been building on that.

   So let's remember that. It’s not about legacy, it's about continuing that tradition of building relations around the world, showing how we are useful, and most important, showing how we can be trusted.

  Despite being quite small economic partners, we actually have a lot going on between us – with Luxembourg, Belgium and Netherlands. Cargolux, which is a Luxembourg company, is Europe's largest cargo airline. It has its regional office in Singapore, together with another 500 Luxembourg companies. Antwerp port, which PSA has the majority stake in, is PSA’s largest presence outside Singapore.

   So we have significant involvements with each other, and during this trip, we are in fact taking it further in various areas – satellite technology, even issues to do with safety at home – SCDF is advancing its relationship with its partners in Luxembourg. So there's much we can do together. Despite being small countries, far apart, we are each developing capabilities, technologies, often frontier technologies, and it will do us well to cooperate with each other.

   But the people-to-people relationship is key. That's where the real relationships are, the friendships and the emotions that really bind us together. And we’ve got all of you, and in fact, in total, I was told there are about 1000 Singaporeans working and living in the Benelux region, doing various things in a whole range of sectors. Some in finance, some in IT, some in the arts and culture. I have a few names that were given to me, just as examples of Singaporeans doing something interesting this part of the world.

   Phoebe Kwan, who was formerly from MFA and now is working for the Centre for Future Generations, which is a think tank that works on AI applications. Another former MFA officer, Grace Zhu, also here today. She co-founded Mothers Reborn, which specialises in creating products that help with birth recovery and breastfeeding.

  Alain Vandenborre is here. Proud Singaporean, of Belgian origin, and he published two books about Singapore several years ago – ‘Proudly Singaporean – My Passport to a Challenging Future’, and another called ‘The Little Door to the New World’.

   We have many other interesting examples of Singaporeans going back and forth. For instance, last year at Tomorrowland, which is one of the largest music festivals in the world for electronic dance music, Singapore DJ Brian Chin, who's better known by his stage name Toska, performed for 30 minutes with tracks from his unreleased album. In Holland, Studio59 Concepts, which is a film studio set up by two Singaporean producers, Remi M Sali and Ho Pak Kin, produced a film in Schiedam. It has done well.

   It’s all these different ways in which we are present in different parts of the world that do make an impact. Not only in business and commerce and technology, but in the softer side of things – arts, culture, even birth recovery like Grace is doing, many different areas. We’ve got to keep doing that.

   Each of you is playing a role, some of you as spouses or kids who are growing up here, others in enterprise, others in culture, or as professionals who eventually will go back or go to some other part of the world. But we are a small country that’s making our presence felt, through our expertise, by being trusted, by being friendly, and always wanting to do good for the world. And I thank you for that.

   Once again, on behalf of my wife and Minister Chee, MOS Sun, and Vikram and Sharael, I want to say it's a real pleasure for us to be here with you, and we’ll be talking as the afternoon progresses. Thank you.