Singapore Prime Minister says EU-Singapore trade deal could be extended to UK post-Brexit
Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said today he would be prepared to extend the terms of Singapore’s recently agreed trade with the European Union to the UK.
“We hope we will be able to continue arrangements with Britain whether or not it is inside the EU… And then we have time to work some better long-term arrangements over time,” he told the BBC, adding that he had discussed such an arrangement with his UK Prime Minister Theresa May.
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“We talked about these possibilities, I think it can be done.”
The secretary of state for International Trade Liam Fox welcomed the comments in a tweet.
Very positive comments today from Singaporean Prime Minister @leehsienloong. Both the UK and Singapore intend to provide continuity for the EU-Singapore FTA helping us grow the relationship which was worth nearly £15bn in 2017 pic.twitter.com/8BPvyyoCNv
— Liam Fox MP (@LiamFox) October 19, 2018
The trade deal between the EU and Singapore will be signed today at the biennial Asia-Europe Meeting.
The deal has been eight years in the making.
Negotiations ended in 2014 but the treaty was then sent for approval by the European Court of Justice. It still needs to be approved by the European Parliament.
This comes after the US said this week that it would start negotiations on a trade deal with the UK as soon as possible post-Brexit.
The US trade representative’s office told Congress this week it wants to negotiate new trade deals with the UK, EU and Japan.
The US said it planned to start talks with the UK “as soon as it is ready” after Britain exits the EU on 29 March. The US wants to develop “cutting edge obligations for emerging sectors where US and UK innovators and entrepreneurs are most competitive.”
Read more: US wants to start trade talks with UK as soon as possible post-Brexit