Speech by President Halimah Yacob at State Banquet hosted by His Excellency Frank-Walter Steinmeier President of the Federal Republic of Germany and Mrs Elke Büdenbender

Your Excellency, Dr. Frank-Walter

First Lady Elke Büdenbender

Excellencies

Distinguished Guests

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Guten Abend.

Let me begin by thanking President Steinmeier for your gracious invitation and the warm hospitality shown to my delegation and me. I am delighted to be in the historic city of Berlin, to reciprocate Your Excellency’s State Visit to Singapore in November 2017.

Your Excellency’s visit was a significant one. It was the first-ever State Visit to Singapore by a German Head of State. I recall the visit fondly as you and Madam Büdenbender were one of the first state guests I received at the Istana after my inauguration. It is therefore a great honour for me now to be the first Singapore President to make a State Visit to Germany.

Singapore and Germany enjoy a strong, substantive and multi-faceted partnership. Our two countries share similar outlooks based on a commitment to free trade, rule of law, as well as global peace and security. As pioneers of ASEAN and the EU respectively, Singapore and Germany are firm advocates of regional integration and multilateralism. The two State Visits symbolise a historic milestone and a partnership at its closest since diplomatic ties were established some 55 years ago.

The close friendship between our two countries stretches much further back. Singapore is commemorating our Bicentennial this year – 200 years since Sir Stamford Raffles arrived in Singapore. The German community has been part of this journey from the very start and made important contributions to Singapore’s development.

Economic ties between our two countries, the cornerstone of our bilateral relations, started as early as the 1840s when Valentin Lorenz-Meyer from Hamburg founded Behn, Meyer & Co., the first German trading company in Singapore. I am glad that Dr Dirk Lorenz-Meyer, Valentin’s great-great-grandson, is present this evening. Dirk is not only Director and Member of the Executive Board of Behn Meyer Holding AG, but also Singapore’s Honorary Consul-General in Hamburg, as was his late father, Dieter Lorenz-Meyer. Today, economic ties between our two countries have continued to flourish. With bilateral trade valued at 14.8 billion Euros, Germany is Singapore’s largest EU trading partner, making up a fifth of Singapore’s total trade with the EU.

German investors have long made meaningful contributions to Singapore. Examples of early German investor confidence in Singapore include companies like Siemens which established a Technical Bureau in Singapore as early as 1908, and Rollei which set up a camera factory in 1971. Today, more than 1,800 German companies are based in Singapore, and German direct investments in Singapore stand at a considerable 14.3 billion Euros. Indeed, one of the objectives of my visit is to thank German companies for their many important contributions to Singapore’s development and their integral role in fostering excellent economic ties between Singapore and Germany.

These ties will further deepen with the recent entry into force of the EU-Singapore Free Trade Agreement. I thank Germany for your strong support, and look forward to the expeditious ratification of the EU-Singapore Investment Protection Agreement as well as the EU-Singapore Partnership Cooperation Agreement by the German Bundestag so that the Agreements can take our bilateral relationship to the next level. It is important to ensure an open system in the face of rising protectionism.

Beyond economic cooperation, our two countries work closely in defence and security. This is critical to safeguard trade and investment supply chains that both our export-oriented economies depend on. Singapore welcomes Germany’s interest to play a more active role in Southeast Asia. Let me also take this opportunity to thank the German Federal Government for allowing the Singapore Armed Forces to train in the Federal State of Saxony and the City of Kiel. Such warm gestures from close friends like Germany are greatly appreciated by a small island state with limited space for defence training.

Singapore and Germany also have an ever-growing collaboration in the field of education. In the past two decades, Singapore students have benefited greatly from Germany’s renowned dual education system.  In fact, two officers in my delegation were graduates of the Technical University of Munich. Many Polytechnic and Institute of Technical Education (ITE) students have also gained valuable experience from Germany’s vocational training programmes. Our universities also cooperate closely in areas including academic research and student exchanges. I am pleased that numerous Memorandums of Understanding to promote greater co-innovation, internships and vocational exchanges will be signed during this visit.

Though geographically distant, good connectivity links have facilitated closer people-to-people ties. Singapore Airlines (SIA) and Lufthansa have been flying daily flights between our two countries for many years. Such opportunities for increased interaction will open up greater collaborative opportunities in a multitude of areas.

Our cooperation also extends to the cultural arena. Next year Germany celebrates the 250^th anniversary of the great German composer Ludwig Van Beethoven. The German Embassy will be organising the third Beethoven im Garten concert at the Singapore Botanic Gardens under the baton of Singaporean Wong Kah Chun, the first Asian chief conductor of the Nuremberg Symphony. Kah Chun is with us tonight, and I congratulate him on being conferred the prestigious Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany earlier this evening.

The partnership between Singapore and Germany is even more pertinent today given the growing trend of anti-globalisation and protectionism. The famous German intellectual Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe once said that it is crucial to “put one’s thoughts into action”. I am confident that the partnership between our two countries will allow us to take the action required to tackle the pressing challenges of our times.

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, may I now invite you to join me in a toast to the good health and success of President Steinmeier, Madam Büdenbender, the people of Germany; and to the close and enduring friendship between our two countries.