Keynote Speech by Ms Charlene Chang, Deputy Secretary (Development), Ministry of Law, at 2024 Conference on International Industrial Cooperation

20 MAR 2024

Mdm Liu Chun, Vice President of the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products (CCCME)

Mr Kho Choon Keng, President of the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce & Industry (SCCCI)

Mr Charles Ho, Core Council Member of SCCCI

Mr Tan Zhiyong, President of the China Enterprises Association (Singapore)

Mr Liu Jian, Senior Vice President of ZTE Corporation

Distinguished Guests, Ladies and gentlemen

Introduction

  1. 大家下午好！
  1. It is a great pleasure to be here, at the 2024 Conference on International Industrial Cooperation (Singapore). I hope you have had an enriching, fruitful, and productive conference so far.

Compliant vs Conducive Business Environment

  1. This seminar is on “Corporate Governance and Compliance Practices”, and our theme, a very important one, is “Foster a Compliant Business Environment Together”.
  1. Actually, when I first saw the theme, I must admit that it made me pause a bit – because the word “compliant” is not necessarily a word that people often use to describe what they desire in a business environment. The word “compliant” implies having to submit to various rules and standards, and maybe rigidity, inflexibility, and does not conjure the most positive image in people’s minds. I was thinking “conducive” is actually a more common term, or more preferred term that people use.
  1. But actually when I thought about it a little bit further, I realised that we do need both a “conducive” business environment as well as a “compliant” one, in order to be a good place for enterprises.
  1. Enterprises want a convenient place to do business:

(a) Easy access to investors, partners, suppliers, service providers, customers – not just in Singapore, but also in the region and beyond.

(b) World-class infrastructure is also important, including the ports, airports, transportation within the country, telecommunications.

(c) Enterprises also appreciate the ability to hire the best talent with the relevant skillsets, who understand their industry and their target markets.

(d) And of course, wide networks of legal agreements as well, like free trade agreements, double tax agreements, and more importantly, and I note this is a major focus of this conference, digital economy agreements.

  1. But beyond all these, enterprises also want a place where they can feel confident that their investments will be safe, and their rights will be protected. To give them that confidence, a clear set of laws, regulations and rules are needed, so that they know what is permitted and what is not, and everyone is clear and there is little ambiguity. But yet at the same time, these rules and regulations cannot be too onerous and prescriptive, such that it becomes tedious and painful to comply with them. And this is a very fine balance.

Singapore’s Approach

  1. Singapore takes a balanced and differentiated approach. We have a light touch approach in some areas, and maybe stronger regulations in others, where there is public interest to do so.
  1. For example, we make it easy for businesses to get started in Singapore. It takes only 15 minutes to submit an online application to register a company. And it takes around 1.5 days for the registration to be approved – some of the fastest turnaround time in this region.
  1. Before I started in this position at the Ministry of Law last year, I spent some time in a variety of different agencies, including the Ministry of Health, as well as the Ministry of National Development.

(a) In the healthcare sector, it concerns the health, and sometimes even life and death of people. So it needs to be properly regulated – properly and robustly regulated, as it is in most countries.

(b) In Singapore, in the real estate sector, public housing – you may be familiar with our public housing system where 80% of our local residents reside in – is developed by our Housing and Development Board, which is a public agency. But the private housing market is fully open to foreign developers. And in fact, Chinese developers like Qingjian are quite active in Singapore.

(c) Similarly, in the financial sector, for example, there are more safeguards when products are targeted at retail investors, what we affectionately call aunties and uncles in Singapore, compared to institutional investors.

  1. Likewise, for the legal sector, we adopt a similar approach.

(a) We place greater scrutiny on the practice of Singapore law, as compared to foreign and international law. We also place greater scrutiny on the practice of domestic areas, such as family law and criminal law, compared to corporate and commercial areas. And this is because these areas more directly impact the man-on-the-street.

(b) We have fully liberalised our international commercial arbitration regime, allowing foreign lawyers and foreign arbitrators to take full part in arbitration proceedings, even if the contract is not governed by Singapore law. We do this, because we recognise that these are savvy international businesses at the top of their game, which would want the best people to defend their interests. They would want the best lawyers, and they want arbitrators, who understand their industry and have strong expertise in the subject matter.

  1. So we are very glad that our local legal industry recognises that this is an essential ingredient to strengthening our position as a global legal hub. They embrace the competition and they stepped up to become better than others. Our Singapore law practices and lawyers are now ranked amongst the best in the region in many practice areas, such as international arbitration, restructuring and insolvency, and intellectual property.
  1. The co-organiser of this seminar – Rajah & Tann – is one of them. They have one of the most comprehensive networks in Southeast Asia. And in fact, their representative office in Shanghai also recently celebrated their 20th anniversary last year.

Results

  1. This differentiated approach has served us very well. Singapore has consistently been ranked as one of the easiest places to do business in the world. We were the third largest recipient of foreign direct investment in 2022, after the US and China – two major economies in the world. We are home to many of the world’s leading companies. We have the highest number of regional headquarters set up in the past 10 years in Asia Pacific. In 2022 alone, more than 500 Chinese companies were registered in Singapore. We also have close to 150 foreign law firms in Singapore, including 9 Chinese law firms. And we are very grateful of all of these trust and confidence in Singapore.
  1. Because of this trust and confidence, many parties then turn to us, turn to Singapore for dispute resolution, even when there is no connection whatsoever to Singapore.

(a) We are fortunate to be ranked as the most preferred seat of arbitration in the world, alongside London, in the Queen Mary University of London and White & Case’s International Arbitration Survey in 2021. Notably, Singapore was the only jurisdiction ranked among the top four seat of arbitration in all regions.

(b) Our Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC), which I am sure many of you must be familiar with, was also ranked the second most preferred arbitral institution in the world in the same survey.

(c) Foreign users from many jurisdictions have chosen to file their cases with SIAC, as well as with the Singapore International Mediation Centre (SIMC), as well as the Singapore International Commercial Court (SICC) over the years. And in fact, Chinese parties are amongst our top foreign users.

  1. They chose us for various reasons. I mentioned a few of these earlier:

(a) Our trusted legal system

(b) Our open regime, which allows parties to engage lawyers, arbitrators and mediators of any nationality.

(c) Our rich pool of legal talent – both Singapore as well as foreigners.

  1. I would add a few more reasons here:

(a) Our strong and independent institutions, such as the SIAC and the SIMC, which have good governance and are well integrated with the rest of our legal ecosystem, and are responsive to their users.

(b) We also have purpose-built hearing facilities. I think some of you may be familiar with Maxwell Chambers. If you are not, I encourage you to pay a visit there. Maxwell Chambers is a purpose-built centre for dispute resolution for arbitration. It constantly updates itself to meet evolving needs.

(c) We are also very connected to many parts of the world. It is relatively easy to fly in and out of Singapore, as you have experienced and it is also easy to move around our small country. We are fortunately not beset by natural disasters, which may then disrupt your plans. We do not have labour strikes that paralyse our transport system, or other essential services.

(d) These are hygiene factors that may not be directly related to dispute resolution, but nonetheless are invaluable to businesses. And I dare say to Taylor Swift as well, and other top global artists.

  1. But more importantly, I think we have achieved all of these, because we are blessed with friends who work well together.
  1. In Singapore, there is a close tripartite relationship among the government, the unions, and the employers. We work in cooperation to shape Singapore’s future – forging consensus in developing strategies, taking collective action to achieve sustainable growth and development. The government engages the unions and employers (i.e. the businesses) regularly, including the various Chinese chambers of commerce here, to seek feedback and suggestions.
  1. Externally, we enjoy strong bilateral relations with many countries, and we learn from each other – share experiences and best practices. China is one country whom we have longstanding and substantive relations with. We meet regularly at the highest level.

(a) We have institutionalised platforms, such as the Joint Council for Bilateral Cooperation (JCBC) that is chaired by our Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong and Chinese Premier Ding Xuexiang, and the various provincial business councils, chaired at the ministerial level.

(b) We have three flagship Government-to-Government projects, I am sure we are all very familiar with these – the Suzhou Industrial Park, the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City, and the China-Singapore (Chongqing) Demonstration Initiative on Strategic Connectivity (CCI). These are different projects that were introduced, in line with our countries’ priorities at different development phases.

(c) At the Ministry of Law, we also have close relations with the Ministry of Justice, the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT), as well as legal industry players in China. We cooperate on areas, such as international commercial dispute resolution, talent development, and events, all of which are mutually beneficial to both sides.

  1. So, the word “together”, which appears in this afternoon’s seminar theme is something that I fully agree with.

Conclusion

  1. As I come to the end of my remarks, let me attempt a few lines in Mandarin to end us off.
  1. 新加坡致力打造一个优良的营商环境 —不止合规，也不断优化、创新，和国际接轨。
  1. 如果有什么地方我们可以做得更好的，我们很乐意改进。
  1. 所以在此，感谢主办方的邀请，也感谢大家的聆听。
  1. 祝愿会议圆满成功。谢谢大家！

Last updated on 20 March 2024