CBN Friday Special丨China-Singapore ties elevated with a record 24 MOUs signed

Take a walk in the Gardens by the Bay, go shopping in the high-end malls at the Marina Bay Sands, take photos with the iconic Merlion Statue, enjoy a hearty meal in Chinatown, experience adrenaline-rushing thrill rides at the Universal Studios, or enjoy a cozy afternoon at the Jewel Changi Airport……A fascinating city-state, a vibrant metropolis, where diverse experiences unfold every moment, Singapore is a captivating island nation in Southeast Asia that boasts a thriving tourism industry that excites visitors with its remarkable blend of modernity and tradition. Sounds tempting to go? There’s more good news.China and Singapore announced a 30-day visa-free policy last Thursday that is likely to see a boom in tourism between the two countries."Both countries will work out the implementation details of the mutual 30-day visa exemption arrangement and implement it in early 2024," the Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.Singapore Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, who is also Singapore's finance minister, made the announcement during the 19th Joint Council for Bilateral Cooperation(JCBC) in Tianjin.The JCBC is the highest-level annual forum between both countries, reviewing their substantive collaboration and charting the direction of cooperation.With the number of flights between Singapore and China increasing, the two countries will facilitate travel via a 30-day mutual visa exemption policy, media reported, citing Wong.30-day mutual visa exemptionSingapore is a popular destination for Chinese tourists and a key source of inbound visitors for China. One million Chinese headed to Singapore in the first nine months of the year, 35 percent of the level of 2019, the year before the Covid-19 pandemic, with China ranking as its second-biggest source of visitors, according to official figures. On microblogging site Weibo, the topic of the mutual visa exemption was the second most searched-for topic at one point, with 120 million views and 26,000 discussion threads.According to online travel operator Trip.com, the news sparked a considerable interest in travel to the island state among Chinese travelers.Trip.com said the search volume for Singapore on their sites rose by 80 percent in the hour after the announcement of the news, compared with the hour before, with flight ticket searches going up 90 percent and hotel searches increasing 50 percent.The current average length of stay is five days for Singaporeans in China and four days for the Chinese visiting Singapore, data from Trip.com showed. The Chinese mainland cities most popular with visiting Singaporeans are Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou.Local media also reported that the Singapore government will speak to their Chinese counterparts on how to further increase the number of direct flights between both countries, according to Acting Transport Minister Chee Hong Tat.China has waived visas for Singaporean passport holders for 15-day trips since July.Searches for tourist sites in Singapore also surged after the announcement. Data from travel platform Qunar.com showed that searches for Singapore quadrupled compared with last week, while searches for tickets to Universal Studios Singapore shot up 40 percent month-on-month.Industry observers expect Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, now all offering visa-free travel for Chinese travelers, to form a golden outbound travel route in 2024.While Singapore is set to become the ninth country of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations to take steps to ease entry for Chinese passport holders, the other eight ASEAN members have already done so recently, including Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Thailand, Myanmar, and Vietnam. The Philippines is now the only exemption.Meanwhile, under a visa-free entry policy effective from Dec.1, ordinary passport holders from France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Malaysia are now able to enjoy visa-free travel to China for up to 15 days.According to China's National Immigration Administration, 2,029 people from these countries entered China without a visa on Day One of the visa-free policy, up by over 12 percent from the previous day.Elevated ties with SingaporeApart from the upcoming mutual visa-free arrangement, China and Singapore signed a record 24 memorandums of understanding on cooperation during Wong's visit to China, a protocol to further upgrade the China-Singapore Free Trade Agreement (CSFTA).The two countries elevated their bilateral relationship into an all-round, high-quality and future-oriented partnership in March, and these latest moves will inject fresh momentum into bilateral trade and investment ties.The agreement, announced by China’s Ministry of Commerce, will improve market access for businesses to trade and invest in each other's markets, experts said.The signing of the enhanced trade pact, which has been benchmarked against international economic and trade rules and is based on a negative list approach, will lay a more solid foundation for China's accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), they added.Noting that the improved FTA is part of an ongoing effort since the elevation of bilateral ties in late March, the ministry said that both sides will make further commitments on opening-up to scale up liberalization of trade in services and investment in the form of a negative list, and provide more solid institutional safeguards for companies.Over the past three years, the two sides have completed all negotiations after several rounds of consultations since December 2020. Going forward, China and Singapore will expedite their respective domestic legal steps and strive for the implementation of the upgraded protocol at an early date, the ministry added.China has been Singapore's top trading partner for 10 consecutive years, and bilateral trade rose 22.8 percent year-on-year to US$115.13 billion last year, said the General Administration of Customs.Over the past decade, Singapore has also been China’s largest foreign investor, according to Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs website. China was the top recipient of investment from Singapore in 2021, with US$145 billion invested, official data indicated.The renewed framework will usher in more opportunities for Singaporean companies as China has a vibrant consumer market and a booming economy that is rapidly moving toward high-quality growth, said Kok Ping Soon, CEO of the Singapore Business Federation, which represents more than 29,000 Singaporean companies globally.According to a national business survey released by the federation in January, 46 percent of the companies surveyed currently have a presence in China. Meanwhile, among those planning future overseas expansion, 21 percent expressed their interest in the Chinese market.Amid rising global uncertainty, China and Singapore have strengthened bilateral cooperation, which will provide a stabilizer for regional cooperation. Collaboration in industry and supply chains will provide more impetus and confidence for the stability of the entire regional economy, experts noted.In terms of financial cooperation, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) unveiled new digital initiatives during the JCBC.The highlight of the announcements includes the initiation of a Cross-border E-CNY Pilot between China and Singapore. This pilot, following a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed in 2020, enables travelers from both countries to use e-CNY for tourism spending in Singapore and China, streamlining transactions during overseas travel.Building on the success of the Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) Product Link between Singapore Exchange (SGX) and Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE) in 2022, a new link has been established with the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE). The launch of the CSOP Huatai-Pinebridge SSE Dividend Index ETF and CSOP iEdge Southeast Asia+ TECH Index ETF on Dec 1, 2023, marks the initial products under this link, fostering collaboration opportunities for fund managers and improving investors’ access to ETF products in both markets.