Ong hopes for stroger cooperation

Ong hopes for stroger cooperation

SINGAPORE (AFP): Singapore and Australia should work together
to explore burgeoning business opportunities in Asian markets
such as Indonesia, Singapore President Ong Teng Cheong said
Tuesday.

"We should combine our strengths to seize and develop these
opportunities," Ong said at a banquet for visiting Australian
Governor General Bill Hayden, who arrived here Monday on a three-
day visit.

Ong cited an existing "trilateral relationship" linking
Singapore, the Australian state of Victoria and the Chinese
province of Jiangsu as an example of such cooperation.

"Indonesia, with its vast infrastructural needs, rich cultural
heritage and large natural resources, is another potential
partner for trilateral cooperation," the Singapore president
said.

Ong, who graduated in architecture from the Australian
University of Adelaide, also offered to help Australia integrate
with Asia, noting a common vision of a dynamic Asia-Pacific.

Many Australians gave their lives during the Second World War
in defense of Singapore and what was then known as Malaya, and
fought in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s to stop the march of
communism, he said.

"Today, Australia is once again active in Asia -- not to fight
a war on someone else's behalf, but on your own convictions that
your future is locked with Asia's," Ong said.

Hayden held talks Tuesday with Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong
and Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew.

Singapore is Australia's largest trade partner in Southeast
Asia with annual two-way trade totaling about US$4 billion.