New trade deal boosts S'pore's strategic importance to U.S.
New trade deal boosts S'pore's strategic importance to U.S.
Agence France-Presse, Singapore
The U.S.-Singapore Free Trade Agreement (FTA) will boost
Singapore's strategic importance to Washington and produce
immediate benefits for both countries, officials and businessmen
said Wednesday.
The first FTA between the U.S. and an Asian country was signed
in Washington Tuesday by President George W. Bush and Prime
Minister Goh Chok Tong, kicking off a sweeping liberalization of
bilateral trade in goods and services.
By widening intellectual property protection in an
increasingly patent-driven world economy, the FTA also
strengthens Singapore's status as the main portal for U.S.
business in Southeast Asia's market of more than 500 million
people.
Under the FTA, even the distinctive, throaty roar of a Harley-
Davidson motorcycle -- one of the most potent icons of American
industry -- can be patented, in addition to discoveries in new
fields like biotechnology.
"This is a very comprehensive agreement which we hope will be
a standard for other free trade agreements in ASEAN and
elsewhere," said Kristin Paulson, chairman of the American
Chamber of Commerce in Singapore.
Singapore, with just four million people, is the most
prosperous but also the most trade-dependent among the 10 members
of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which has
created a regional FTA for the grouping.
The U.S.-Singapore deal is seen as the first thread in an
interlocking web of bilateral FTAs linking North America and
ASEAN.
Raymond Lim, Singapore's minister of state for foreign affairs
and trade and industry, said the FTA will raise Singapore's gross
domestic product (GDP) by 0.5 percent.
That would have a substantial impact on a city-state which has
lowered its GDP growth target this year to 0.5 to 2.5 percent
largely because of fallout from the Severe Acute Respiratory
Syndrome (SARS) epidemic in the region.
Lim said the agreement is likely to spur hundreds of American
companies to open regional offices in Singapore and use the city-
state as a springboard to further penetrate the Asian market.
There are already 1,300 American companies and 15,000 U.S.
nationals in Singapore, where private U.S. investment is
estimated at more than US$27 billion U.S. Two-way trade is
estimated at $34 billion.
Singapore, despite the disapproval of its Muslim neighbors,
gave full support for the U.S. campaign against terrorism after
the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, as well as the recent U.S. war on
Iraq.
The Singapore Confederation of Industries said incoming U.S.
investment commitments should rise beyond the 2002 level of $2.4
billion as more U.S. multinational corporations set up their
Asian bases here.
For American companies, one immediate benefit is the opening
up of Singapore's financial, insurance and legal services
sectors, and so reach deeper into the region's services market.