 Your presence here in particular, and I believe it's a very strong turnout, is testament to the strong, deep and enduring relationship that we have between the United States and Singapore. Today's meeting occurs against the backdrop of continued significant and persistent economic uncertainty in the global economic environment. Having barely recovered from the financial crisis of 2008, the global economic recovery is now weighed down by the Eurozone debt crisis. The IMF's latest projections put global GDP growth for 2012 at 3.3%, down from 3.8% in last year. The US itself is also witnessing a kind of tepid recovery of sorts. The US economy is projected to grow at 2.2% this year, up from 1.8% in 2011 and unemployment has, as you all well aware, eased from the high of 10% in October 2009 to 8.3% January this year. However, the questions persist over the sustainability and durability of this recovery. In Singapore, we remain confident of the US's ability to not only recover from this downturn, but actually to emerge stronger. And it is not a confidence that is based on just diplomacy or kind words, but it's actually premised, we believe, on the US's fundamental strengths. And let me enumerate some of them, which we feel in Singapore, to be of great significance. Firstly, clearly, size is the world's largest economy with some of the most entrepreneurial, enterprising organizations. Second, your continued preeminence as a location for research and development and the generation of knowledge, intellectual property, innovation, and that combined with the enterprise and enterprising spirit of your people bringing new products and services to the market. The third is the relative youthfulness of your population complemented by your openness and ability to attract and retain the best talent from around the world. And finally, and I would suggest perhaps most fundamentally, your belief in the free market and fair competition, which stands you an excellent step to take advantage of opportunities that arise all over the world, even in challenging times like this. Let me now, just in broad brush terms, talk about the challenges that we face. I think for the US notwithstanding these enormous strengths that you have, strengthening the domestic economy and creating jobs, revitalizing manufacturing, as well as other sectors of the economy, is going to be challenging, particularly in an increasingly highly interconnected and competitive global environment. This is not your unique challenge, it is a universal challenge, and in Singapore we are no strangers to this. Our population and relatively, our small population and economic size and relatively high wages mean that we have to be ever vigilant for new market opportunities. And we are also keenly aware that we have to compete on the basis of value and not on the basis of cost. If I can give you an illustration, the average monthly manufacturing wages in Singapore is approximately 2800 US dollars. That is almost 10 times the average monthly income of a manufacturing worker in China. It's about 290 US dollars. Consequently, our companies, those based in Singapore, are under tremendous pressure, especially in the manufacturing sector, to locate their operations where cost structures are lower in order to ensure their continued competitiveness. And I'm sure this is a point that would resonate with many of you in the United States. Our response has been to make a concerted effort to move up the value chain. This means, amongst other things, training and retraining our workers to enhance their productivity, incentivizing and promoting innovation at the enterprise level so that new products and services can emerge, and at the same time, a more general restructuring of our economy and its composition in order to be able to move towards higher value at sectors. These are intellectually easy to grasp. Execution is another matter, and it is quite difficult when it comes to dealing with the transitions on the ground. In his State of the Union address, President Obama highlighted the need and his proposal for job creation and the training of skilled workers. And this has been echoed by the President's Council for Jobs and Competitiveness. And these are challenges and policy recommendations, especially those coming from the Administration and various other parts of the U.S. system. The challenges that have been identified and the policy recommendations that have been made resonate with us because we fully identify with them and we are living through that ourselves. The obvious and substantial asymmetry in our size between the U.S. and Singapore obviously makes it exponentially harder for the United States to overcome the challenge. Yet we believe that our common challenge can also undergird a broad and deep collaboration between the United States and Singapore in the global economic arena. In today's hyperlinked and hypercompetitive global economy, companies are aggressively seeking out every vestige of cost advantage and competitive advantage. It is unusual for goods to be entirely produced in one location. Distributed manufacturing is the norm and companies seek to optimize their supply chains in response to that evolution in manufacturing. The global marketplace in short has shrunk in terms of its linkages. The time to market for products and services has minimized and product cycles have intensified. And for those of us who are familiar with the business sector, I think we would know these to be the realities that our companies face day in and day out. So the question really is how do we thrive in such an environment? Clearly we must play to our strengths, make sure our companies have freedom to operate, build high quality workforces that can create high quality products and services that need the emerging and growing needs in the global economy. In particular, we must ensure that our companies, products and services gain untrammeled access to markets around the world. In Singapore, we have always driven to do this. And in a way, we have had no choice. Our Turkey has never been an option for us, small economy. We exist, our raison d'etre is really to be useful to the rest of the world. Even for the United States, which is the biggest economy in the world, 95% of your global consumers, or your consumers, still live outside your country. So you're still catering to a massive consumer market outside your own borders. As such, expansion into new markets will help US companies grow and create jobs. The National Export Initiative, which aims to double exports over the five year period and to help support 2 million jobs, is clearly a rallying call in this direction. In that regard, today Asia clearly presents the most compelling prospects for renewed economic engagement and trade growth. So let me give you a couple of bits of data to illustrate the point. In the last 20 years, from 1990 to 2010, Asia's trade with North America doubled from US $0.4 trillion to $0.8 trillion. And that, as a share of global trade, is about 17%. Now that is an impressive statistic, but this is one of those situations where the glass is half full or half empty. And let me explain why. Because on the one hand, we can take comfort from the fact that this means that the US in absolute terms has been able to significantly enhance its trade and the rest of North America with the Asia. But here's the countervailing statistic. In the same time, intra-Asian trade has trebled from 0.8 trillion US dollars to 2.5 trillion US dollars. And intra-Asia trade is now 53% of global trade. So this speaks to the possibility of missed opportunities. It's a salutary tale of what we can perhaps be doing more in order to take advantage of the opportunities that are emerging at a significant pace in the Asia Pacific region. So we believe that the prospects are strong and indeed in the future they're even more compelling. The IMF estimates that roughly 87% of global growth over the next five years will take place outside of the US. And most of that growth will take place in Asia. So it is not about whether it is about how and how deeply we're able to engage in this growth opportunity. There are three key drivers of growth in Asia. The first is the rise of the middle class. Demographically, Asia's middle class is projected to grow to 1.7 billion people by 2020, more than five times the US's current population. A second trend is higher disposable incomes. According to a study by Price Waterhouse Coopers, Asia will account for more than 80% of the growth in global middle class spending, which is forecast to rise from 21 trillion in 2009 to 56 trillion. I mean, after a while the zeros don't make sense, but it gives you a sense of scale and the pace of change. The third major trend is rapid urbanization. Asia is urbanizing at an unprecedented rate. By 2025, 16 out of the 27 mega cities in the world will be in Asia, and China alone will have 131 cities with more than 1 million people. Within Southeast Asia, there will be more than 20 such cities. By 2050, more than two-thirds of the population in the Asia Pacific will be urban dwellers. What does that mean? Demand and pressure on infrastructure, on new types of solutions to make urban dwelling something that is sustainable and paying heed to the kind of environmental pressures we face and also in terms of infrastructure development. In tandem with these trends, Asia's consumer demand for goods and services will surge, and I'd like to highlight a few sectors which have significant growth potential, and I think they are of great relevance to the United States. Energy is one area. Asia is a net energy importer, and Asian energy demand will increase by 23% of the next decade. It is true that Asia will continue to rely substantially on fossil fuel sources, but it is equally true that Asia will need to explore alternatives as part of an energy diversification strategy, and that means alternative energy possibilities, whether it is solar, wind, and also the nuclear elements. And I think this is an area where there is significant growth as possibilities as well. Infrastructure, global water demand will outstrip supply by 40% by 2030, and this problem is particularly acute in Asia, and the global water market hit a size of $500 billion in 2011, and it will grow dramatically over the next two decades, and some analysts estimate that it will reach $1 trillion by 2020. In Asia, we are very keenly aware of this. In Singapore, we are very keenly aware of it because this has been one of our own basic constraints which we have sought to overcome. Aerospace is another important sector. Asia will account for 29% of global aircraft deliveries by 2026, and 32% of global air traffic in 2028. That means demand for aircrafts, demands for aircraft components, and demands for MRO, maintenance repair overhaul services, and a whole range of other support activities. I can go on, but I think the point has been well made, but one particular area I would like to highlight is also healthcare, healthcare and pharmaceuticals. Asia is facing an aging population trend. Some parts of Asia are facing this more imminently than others, but collectively, Asia is going to need a lot more by way of healthcare services and pharmaceutical products and more that are tailored to the specific genetic types that you find in the Asian region. So we have seen and we continue to see global pharmaceutical companies undertake clinical trials in our part of the world precisely because they see the opportunities in customizing these products and it's under the field of pharmacogenomics, but it links back to the whole global strategy that many global pharma have. So these sectors are significant, and the examples I've highlighted, what's common to them is that they all require a high level of skills, deep intellectual property and capabilities, and essentially they appeal and play to the strengths of economies like the United States. You are familiar with urban solutions because of all the cities you have built and supported. You are at the cutting edge of environmental technologies and energy innovation. You are at the cutting edge of pharmaceutical and healthcare services. So there are enormous opportunities to be had, and we think that Singapore can work together with you to better take advantage of these opportunities. Many US companies already appreciate the value of such synergy. They recognize in Singapore the value of a Pan-Asian vantage that we afford. So whether it is North China, Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia or South Asia, Singapore provides a vantage and a strategic location and connectivity which is critical to a large-scale regional strategy. Singapore's intellectual property regime has also facilitated growing R&D collaborations between our countries. So let me give you an example. The Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology, SMART Center. If you don't know us by now, we like acronyms, and so SMART is one of them. But the SMART Center was established in 2007 for researchers from MIT to work together with their counterparts in Singapore in order to look at a whole range of technological solutions. And the center currently involves several hundred researchers from both countries, and they're working on problems ranging from infectious diseases to environmental sensing and modeling. Areas which will have significant relevance and long-term payoffs. And I believe that there's even greater scope for collaboration between our two countries and enterprises that reside within our respective countries. And we need to work on specific strategies to tap the vast opportunities that have been presented by what is happening in Asia. So as Asia has grown, so too has the momentum for economic integration. There has been a wave of free trade agreements spreading across the region. Before the year 2000, there were only four major trade agreements among APEC economies. The U.S. was partied to two of them, the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Area and NAFTA. Today, there are 39 concluded FTAs among Asia-Pacific countries. The U.S. is partied to only four of that incremental number, which is with Australia, Chile, Peru and Singapore. The U.S.'s commitment to rejuvenate this relationship is timely. Many Asian countries see the U.S.'s engagement in the region as a benign force of stability, which is essential to their continued development. Equally, the U.S. must regard Asia as a key driver of its future growth. Secretary Clinton made this point eloquently and emphatically when she declared the 21st century to be America's Pacific century. The U.S. and Singapore have always shared an abiding commitment to free trade. We both firmly believe in the virtues of a fair, open and rules-based global trading system. That is why our countries have a long-standing partnership in building up free trade architecture across various regions and certainly at the multilateral level. Our countries are co-operated at the WTO and regional fora like APEC and ASEAN. And we have worked together with other like-minded countries on plurilateral initiatives, such as the Information Trade Agreement to facilitate trade in IT products, which is within the ambit of the WTO. The latest initiative in that series of free trade initiatives is the Trans-Pacific Partnership Negotiation. Together with seven other countries, we have the vision of making the TPP a gold standard, high-ambition template for future FTAs in the region. Like the U.S., we believe the TPP has the potential to become the nucleus of a larger and more inclusive free trade area of the Asia-Pacific. But we have to start and make a significant move in that direction. The current nine member countries of the TPP already represent over one quarter. In fact, it's about 27% of global GDP. And they account for 16% of global exports. Another three, Canada, Mexico, and Japan, have expressed their interest to join the partnership. If they do, the TPP will represent almost 40% of global GDP and account for a quarter of global trade. It would be a sizable market and pack significant economic heft and facilitate significant business and economic possibilities. The TPP will also smoothen our trade linkages in several ways. Firstly, by lowering tariffs and removing barriers to trade and services, it will improve market access between member countries. Secondly, the adoption of a common set of trading rules will facilitate regional accumulation. To qualify for preferential tariff treatment, goods will no longer be narrowly considered as U.S. originating or Singapore originating, but rather as TPP originating. And that is important when we think of the nature of manufacturing today. The point I made earlier about distributed manufacturing. In Singapore, and within ASEAN, we are very familiar with this because it's very common for electronics companies to undertake different component manufacturing in different jurisdictions, bring them together in one location, possibly Singapore for final box bill before they export after doing QC. Thirdly, as TPP member countries streamline and align regulations, it will make it easier for companies large and small to conduct business across borders. The TPP will also allow companies to flexibly locate their facilities and sources for input across the member economies with intermediate goods flowing freely and efficiently. This integration will enhance the economic competitiveness of TPP member countries. That is the ultimate goal of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The leaders of the TPP nations have set the target of substantively concluding negotiations by this summer. It is by all accounts an ambitious target, but Singapore is committed to work with the U.S. and our other TPP partners to support its significant resources towards that effort. Ultimately, pragmatism and flexibility will be key to the success of the process. But our cooperation should not end with just the TPP. As like-minded partners, we should continue to work together to push the global free trade agenda. Although work on the Doha development agenda has lost some momentum, the WTO as a global institution must hold fast to its objectives of trade liberalization. It is important that it is already the guardian of a set of heavily negotiated agreements. It is also the venue for dispute resolution. These are important assets we have within the global trading system. We must make sure that the WTO, even as it preserves this, is invigorated by new initiatives on the negotiation front to ensure it remains relevant to the global community. In Singapore, to that end, we stand ready to work with the U.S., along with other partners, to explore and build support for fresh and credible approaches within the multilateral trading system. An ITA type, information technology agreement type, plurilateral approach comprising a critical mass of membership is one such way. It is one way of taking the agenda forward at the multilateral level. Ladies and gentlemen, let me conclude by summarizing my key points. First, the U.S. and Singapore face similar challenges within the context of today's highly interconnected and hyper competitive global economy. Secondly, Asia presents a clear and sustained opportunity for economic engagement in trade, where the U.S. and Singapore have a significant competitive advantage. As like-minded partners in the global trade arena, the U.S. and Singapore can forge a deep and wide collaboration to enlarge the economic space for our companies. Thirdly, the Trans-Pacific Partnership offers a compelling opportunity to create a high quality free trade agreement among member countries. It also serves as a template or as an exemplar for other FTAs in the future, including as a nucleus for an FTA of the Asia-Pacific. And lastly and most importantly, Singapore looks forward to working closely with our partners in the U.S. on this promising and exciting journey. Thank you very much for inviting me. That was a wonderful coverage of the opportunities that we have working together on trade. And the minister has said that he will take questions from the floor. Remember that the questions are covered by chat-and-rules. The statement, the speeches are not covered. So would you who wants to be first? Yes. Please state your name and affiliation. Bernard. Minister, I want to speak with you about, raise a question with you with regard to TPP. There are criticisms of, for example, among Australians, many in New Zealand, some in the United States who are particularly questioning the IP regime that is being proposed for the TPP. And you have mentioned in the outset of your remarks, the particular qualities that you find in the United States about innovation, manufacturing, advanced skills in manufacturing given those two considerations that there is this criticism of IP and other not rigid, I should not say that IP rules and at the same time the innovation capacities in the US is it reasonable for those of you who are dealing with the TPP to be more directly strengthened and argue for the kinds of regulatory rules that we have rather than to simply accept some of these criticisms because they are beginning to foment rather widely among some Americans and others, as I say. Thank you. Thank you. I have some familiarity with trade negotiations and I have criticism it means you are not doing something right. But having said that I think intellectual property protection is key but I would say equally it is important to ensure that we are able to achieve some level of consistency in the way we approach it. In Singapore we have put this as one of the core areas for us as an economy as a country we have emphasized this and we have committed resources to building our IP regime and we would be speaking to your point in particular we would be with the United States in finding a way forward to forge a consensus on what would constitute a robust intellectual property protection regime because we understand that it is fundamental to innovation driven economic growth which is important to countries like the US and us. So you have a partner in us in that I think we need to roll up the sleeves and really look at the brass tacks and see how we can reconcile some of the differing perspectives on this because we know that there are quite diverse views. But in principle intellectual property protection has to anchor innovation driven economic growth and that will have to be a part of any high standards free trade agreement that we contemplate. Hi, thanks Mr. Minister. Jamie Strawberry from Inside US Trade had a question on what are some of the major enterprises in TPP another big issue of interest here in the United States. The US Singapore FTA stands out because it has very in depth SOE provisions in it. And I was wondering if you could comment on what that means now going forward in the TPP in particular would Singapore be interested in maintaining the same approach in the US Singapore FTA on SOEs and moving that to the TPP context or is Singapore more interested in kind of thinking in new ways now to address the SOE problem. Thank you. We've crossed the bridge with the US and I think and I've shared this in some private conversations about how 10 years ago pre-dating the US FTA when I used to have conversation with a private and we follow the rules of private enterprise and we make our decisions on that basis without any government intervention many of my US friends found that hard to grasp because it's not in your DNA and I can understand the Europeans have a better understanding of this but I think we have established very clearly in our bilateral agreement the most important thing there's a level playing field and corporate governance and transparency at the levels we expect of all enterprises in the listed or private sectors but in general we have high standards for that so if we use that as our starting point then surely what we have in the US Singapore FTA is going to be an important guidepost as to what we should have in a larger TPP type agreement but having said that I think, and this is why I made the point about pragmatism and flexibility we can have goals but I think we must factor in the consideration that there are member countries in the TPP who may find it challenging to make that leap in one jump and we may need to have the possibility of some flexibility for them in the way they reach that and these are full blown negotiators but there are many ways you can do this but I think that is an important consideration. In other words the aspirational standard must be clear the objective being a level playing field rigorous corporate governance transparency and at the same time then we have pathways to facilitate some of the adjustments if I take a footballing analogy, if you can't make a touchdown take a field goal and move forward it's good then. Hi, my name is Doug Palmer with Reuters I just wondered if you could sort of clarify for me the process by which the TPP members are going to be deciding on whether to allow Japan, Canada and Mexico to enter Japan was here yesterday held consultations with the United States they're going to have a few more discussions at what point do you see a decision being made on that? That's an important question let me start with the first the intent if our intent is that the TPP must be the nucleus of a future free trade area of the Asia Pacific then we must have an open stance towards new members particularly those who are going to bring significant economic connectivity like Japan, Canada, Mexico into the equation that was why I illustrated the point that those three economies collectively will add another 15% of global GDP to the discussion equally we have the objective of a high standards agreement so these are going to have to work in parallel your question on process clearly there's bilateral discussions to take place between the nine current member countries with the three speaking to join and at the same time collectively a decision will have to be made and I think this will probably have to come to a decision point when we have a substantive agreement on the table and the question then is can the new potential members sign on to it in the form that it is or will it require more time so I think that is really more an empirical outcome but I think the intent must be these members because they will add basically contribute to the objective of the partnership let me follow up on that question what you're suggesting is an open architecture for the agreement and let's supposing we are fortunate enough to get a very good TPP completed by the end of this year is it your contemplation that any nation that wants to join may join without the veto of any of the nine who are at the table now this is the language of trade negotiation open architecture veto I'm a very simple person so let me put it this way I think we want to bring the vision is to bring players countries who can contribute constructively to the partnership so I think if you take that perspective then it's quite clear that we should be open to an open architecture as you've put it the platform should be structured in that manner to facilitate it I think what we should not compromise on are the standards that we set because once we do that if we allow a dilution of that then I think it unwinds the core purpose of the exercise but with that objective clearly in mind I think we can allow flexibility in terms of bringing in new members over a period of time and this is not anything new I think there are different there are other trade fora which have gone through this and there are experts in this room who can speak to this much more eloquently than I can Yes please I have a question relating to the asian free trade regime which is free trade amongst the asian members and I'm wondering whether Singapore still does not fully publish its trade data with certain of its members and the reason I understand is publishing this data could be embarrassing to some members and I remember that when the prime minister when you was asked about this question he replied rather testily I thought that Singapore didn't want to do the job of the Indonesian custom service so if there are issues of trade transparency rules of origin what can be done to fix these problems I'm not sure when you had the conversation with Mr Lee but we put out a lot more data now and you should check it out in fact you will find that there is considerable information out in the public domain on this Thank you I'm Matt Cox I'm with virtual radiologic and I'm interested to as a follow up here a statistic that was thrown out where in 18 years 1 out of 5 in Singapore are going to be older than the age of 65 and we obviously face this issue here in the US in 2020 where it will be 1 out of 4 the US has a great opportunity to expand on our resource in healthcare and I'm wondering given the challenge that Singapore is facing what sort of strategies would you recommend we do or what sort of barriers can be removed so that there is an opportunity for us to participate in Singapore with healthcare I would actually say that there are hardly any barriers for you to come in but let me just put it within the context for Singapore an aging population is a major challenge for us it has an impact on us not just in terms of healthcare but in terms of our welfare policies and some of the other elements that we have to manage but equally the business community has so it's a green population but the other color that's used is a silver tsunami right so every cloud has a silver lining so I think but the reality is that it does present important opportunities in addressing the needs of an older population which will also have disposable income because of accumulated savings and so on what we need to do is really find and in Singapore this is what we have a committee chaired by our Minister for Health to develop a comprehensive system to really address the needs of the aging population from healthcare through to community-based support options because we need the spectrum it's not just about if they are sick and they need medical treatment it's also about what happens in our community and so on it includes not just services but also key enabling products which will ease the lifestyle of the senior citizens which is an area for innovation something that in Singapore we are now catching on to but I think in countries like the US activities here in this regard I think they are tremendous scope so there are no barriers as such what I would suggest is companies that are interested in that kind of activity in Singapore they should come in and basically plug into our system and plug into this initiative we have under the healthcare ministry health ministry and take it forward from there the one other point I would make is I have to make this pitch but basically what you do in Singapore potentially can then be scaled to the region because Singapore is really the leading indicator of this trend for our part of the world so we are the canary in the coal mine we are telling you we are getting older the canaries are getting older and they need a certain range of this but this is also going to be the case in the region and we can see that happening already so we think we can work with a range of partners to meet not just our domestic requirements but also then from there leverage it into a larger regional service join me in thanking the minister for a wonderful service we are now going to have our panelists we have six outstanding panelists so join me up here