PM Lawrence Wong at the Singapore-New Zealand Leadership Forum (May 2026)

The Right Honourable Prime Minister Christopher Luxon
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen

Prime Minister, it is very good to have you in Singapore once again. I enjoyed the catch-up with our spouses over dinner last night. And this morning, let me formally welcome you and your delegation, and all our New Zealand friends and business leaders to Singapore. It is a great pleasure to host this Singapore-New Zealand Leadership Forum and to see all of you gathered together.

Last October, Prime Minister Luxon and I marked 60 years of diplomatic ties between our two countries, and we elevated our bilateral relationship to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. And it could not have come at a better time.

The strategic partnership reflects how closely aligned we are — in our outlook, in our commitment to open trade and in a rules-based global system. All of these matter to small, open economies like ours.

And these are not just shared principles, they are very important principles — we have worked together to put them into practice over many years. Now we were among each other’s first free trade partners, and we have collaborated on many groundbreaking initiatives, like the P4, which later became the CPTPP. Our two countries pioneer many things. You may not always hear about them; we work quietly behind the scenes. We try to pull together bigger and larger countries together and gather momentum on important initiatives. And that is how New Zealand and Singapore over time have worked so well together and built such a deep reservoir of trust.

The CSP sets the direction for our next phase of partnership — but what this partnership achieves will depend on how all of us take it forward. Government agreements are important, but they can only go so far. Ultimately, it is businesses and people – all of you here – who give life to the partnership. You know when we were seeing the video just now for example, it was quite interesting to see, in that short video clip, many interactions amongst ministers, leaders, government personnel, military personnel – I certainly saw a lot of clips on that. I did not see too many of business leaders. So it is important that we build these relationships. I did notice though, when Prime Minister Luxon walked in, he gave Choon Phong a hug. Because Air New Zealand and SIA have a strong relationship, and the CEOs have built a good partnership before. And we want more of that, across New Zealand and Singapore businesses. More networks, more partnerships, more relationships amongst the CEOs. Relationships that are forged on trust, where you have one another’s handphone numbers on speed dial. You face an issue, you can call your partner across New Zealand or Singapore; and beyond the discussions that are taking place here in this forum, you will be able to, on an ongoing basis, think through and find new opportunities for collaboration.

We already have a very strong base to build on.

Because Singapore companies are doing more in New Zealand. For example, ComfortDelGro – they are one of Singapore’s largest land transport operators, and they now operate Auckland’s metro rail network together with an Australian partner. We also have newer firms like PolyBee. It uses autonomous pollination drones and other innovation technologies, and it is providing these services to support agricultural productivity in New Zealand.

Of course, New Zealand companies too have long been active in Singapore. Beca, one of New Zealand’s leading engineering and consulting firms, has been here for over four decades. And it has made its mark on many building projects across the Singapore skyline. We also have Fonterra, another very good example — a dairy cooperative which uses Singapore as its regional hub to bring household brands like Anlene and Fernleaf to markets across Asia. So we want more of these companies to inter-operate, but importantly we would like the business CEOs to build these partnerships.

And today’s Forum brings all of you together to build on these links and explore new areas of cooperation.

One key area is supply chain resilience. It will build on the agreement that our two countries are going to sign later on, which is an agreement in trade and essentials supplies. Because we have been through the Covid pandemic; we know what it was like. We are now dealing with disruptions from the Middle East crisis. And these episodes remind us that perhaps, such shocks are no longer one-off — they are becoming part of the new normal in our business environment.

So we cannot assume that markets will always function as before. We have to diversify, de-risk, and build resilience into our systems. Governments have to do so; I’m sure businesses have to do this too, as part of your business continuity plans. And there is no better way to do this than by working with close and trusted partners.

At the same time, there are also new opportunities to pursue together — for example, as has been stated just now in areas like the green and digital economies. In the digital economy in particular, there are synergies for our two countries to collaborate in thinking about how to deploy AI. We are unlikely as two small open economies to be able to build the largest foundation models, but we can be leaders in AI deployment, in use cases. Certainly that is what Singapore strives to do, and we have set up recently a National AI Council with national AI missions in four areas – advanced manufacturing, finance, healthcare and logistics – where we hope to advance AI use cases. Not just small pilots, but in real scale, in operational scale across these four areas. And again, there will be opportunities for collaboration with New Zealand firms. We should also look beyond our two countries, to our wider region — especially in Southeast Asia and ASEAN — where there is tremendous growth potential yet to be unlocked, and possibly new opportunities for collaboration. And for New Zealand companies in particular that have an interest in expanding into Southeast Asia, Singapore firms can be a good partner for you to collaborate with. Singapore can be a useful regional base from which you can operate and expand into countries in Southeast Asia.

All in all, the world is undergoing a fundamental shift. So governments and businesses alike will have to adapt. In this more uncertain environment, trusted partners matter more than ever. Singapore and New Zealand must work closely together – and we will. Prime Minister Luxon and I will be discussing later today how we can do more at our Annual Leaders’ Meeting even as you business leaders are having your business forum. So we all have homework to do. And we should deliver good, concrete practical solutions that will strengthen our partnership further.

This Forum is an important part of this overall effort. I hope you use it well – to build relationships, exchange ideas and start partnerships that will take our cooperation further.

In this changed world, we cannot afford to stand still. We have to move faster, back each other, and stay ahead of the curve. So thank you once again and I wish you all a productive Forum.