KUALA LUMPUR: Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong on Tuesday (May 27) called for stronger cooperation between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in a turbulent world.
Speaking at the ASEAN-GCC summit held on the second day of the 46th ASEAN summit, he said ASEAN has a population of more than 670 million people and is poised to become the world’s fourth-largest economy by 2030.
Meanwhile, the GCC is “rapidly transforming and becoming an important global player in its own right”.
The GCC has a membership of six Arab states, including major oil producers Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait.
The summit on Tuesday was the second time leaders from both regions are meeting after the first ASEAN-GCC summit in 2023.
“Our relations were boosted by the 2023 framework of cooperation and today’s summit can build on this to forge even closer links,” Mr Wong said.
The prime minister highlighted three areas to boost cooperation, such as trade and investment.
He cited the free trade agreement that Singapore has with the GCC as an example that can act as “a pathfinder” to a wider ASEAN-GCC trade pact.
Such a trade deal can help to lower tariffs, strengthen supply chains, promote food security, and enhance investment flows between the two regions.
“So I hope we can redouble our efforts to accelerate the study to examine the possibility of having this (free trade agreement) and also facilitating closer links between our business communities,” said Mr Wong.
The GCC–Singapore free trade agreement, which entered into force in September 2013, eliminates 99 per cent of tariffs for Singapore’s exports to GCC markets.
Singapore was the first non-Middle Eastern country to establish a free trade deal with the GCC, and discussions to upgrade the agreement are underway, Mr Wong said.
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