According to Senior Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and Transport, Chee Hong Tat, bilateral trade between Singapore and eastern China’s Shandong province grew to US$3 billion in the first eight months of this year. This is a 105 per cent year-on-year increase.
Chee said the strong economic ties Singapore shares with Shandong allowed companies here "to quickly source for essentials like medical supplies and food when Covid-19 disrupted some of our supply chains earlier this year".
"Singapore and Shandong can build on this momentum and further strengthen our collaboration in the areas of trade and connectivity, modern services, sustainability and people-to-people exchanges," Chee said after his dialogue with Shandong provincial party secretary Liu Jiayi at the Shandong-Asean Cross Border Business Connect event on Tuesday.
Chee added that he will focus on identifying new growth opportunities for Singapore and Shandong companies as co-chair of the Singapore-Shandong Business Council meeting in November. Another priority is to improve "people-to-people linkages when the situation allows, so that we can both emerge stronger from this pandemic".
Straitstimes.com reports that, according to an Enterprise Singapore (ESG) statement from last year, a potential area for growth between Shandong and Singapore is in trading food products.
