The European Union-Singapore Free Trade Agreement (EUSFTA) enters into force today, November 21, 2019, after its approval by the Council of the EU on November 8. It is the first Free Trade Agreement between the European Union (EU) and an ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) country.
Singapore and the EU launched negotiations of the EUSFTA in 2009. The Good and Services negotiations were concluded in 2012, while the investment protection negotiations were concluded in 2014. The investment protection elements later became the EU-Singapore Investment Protection Agreement (EUSIPA). The EUSFTA and EUSIPA were signed in October 2018, and approved by the European Parliament in February 2019.
Singapore and the EU are important trade and investment partners to each other. In 2018, bilateral trade in goods exceeded $114 billion. In the same year, the EU was Singapore’s third largest goods trading partner while Singapore was the EU’s largest goods trading partner in ASEAN. In 2017, the EU was Singapore’s largest services trading partner, while Singapore was the EU’s largest services trading partner in ASEAN. The EU was the largest foreign investor in Singapore in 2017, accounting for foreign direct investment (FDI) stock of over $376 billion. In the same year, Singapore’s Direct Investment Abroad (DIA) in the EU stood at approximately $122 billion, making Singapore the EU’s 7th largest foreign investor and largest ASEAN investor.
This great partnership exceeds in stone market too. In 2018, EU (28) exported to Singapore marble, both raw and finished, of €10.81 million worth and granite, both raw and finished, of €0.93 million. At the table below, we can see EU’s marble products export value to Singapore between 2014- 2018.
As presented at the table above, the most successful year in EU’s – Singapore’s bilateral marble products trade was 2015, scoring double in export value than last year. 2017 was the worst year concerning marble export value, in contrast with granite export value which was the best of al years mentioned.
Source: www.mti.gov.sg, ec.europa.eu/eurostat
