New China-Ready Programme to Help Singapore Lawyers Seize New Opportunities

30 JUL 2019

30 Jul 2019 Posted in Press releases

  1. “新加坡是全球顶尖的国际争端解决中心，高效、中立、可信赖，为企业提供仲裁、调解、诉讼三位一体全方位的争端解决服务。”Singapore is today a leading international centre for dispute resolution. This is expected to get a further boost with Singapore hosting the signing of the Singapore Convention on 7 August and the opening of the new Maxwell Chambers Suites on 8 August respectively. To better seize these new opportunities, Singapore lawyers would need to be able to serve different markets and expand the international reach of Singapore’s legal services.

  2. The Ministry of Law (MinLaw) announced today the launch of a new China Ready Programme for Singapore’s legal industry. Through this programme, the Ministry seeks to expand the pool of Singapore lawyers, who understand Chinese culture, business environment, legal system and laws, are conversant with Mandarin in the legal context, and can work with Chinese companies and law firms to meet businesses’ needs. Together with networking and secondment, training through the China Ready Programme is a key pillar of MinLaw’s three-pronged strategy to help Singapore lawyers seize new opportunities presented by Singapore’s deepening cooperation with China in legal services. The programme will be developed and delivered by the Han Culture & Education Group (HCEG), a subsidiary of Singapore Press Holdings (SPH).

  3. MinLaw has set up an Advisory Committee to advise on the curriculum and implementation of the China Ready Programme. The Advisory Committee is chaired by Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Law and Ministry of Health, Mr Edwin Tong SC and members comprise 16 distinguished legal professionals from Singapore and China (see Annex A for composition). The appointment is for a period of three years. The committee will meet once a year in Singapore. The inaugural meeting will be held on 6 August 2019 during Singapore Convention Week, at Maxwell Chambers. At the meeting, the committee will discuss the competencies and skillsets Singapore lawyers will need to possess and how these can be built up through the programme.

  4. Under this programme, Singapore lawyers will acquire a foundational appreciation of Chinese culture and business environment, understand legal systems and laws, for example foreign investment law, contract law, and specialist areas such as mergers and acquisitions, and dispute resolution, and master legal terms in Mandarin. There will be a language component which will train Singapore lawyers to be conversant with Mandarin in the legal context: this will be conducted in the evenings once a week for 10 weeks. Lawyers will also have the opportunity to be seconded to Chinese companies and law firms after the Programme. There will be two runs of the programme per year; each run is expected to cover 25 lawyers. The programme will be conducted in English, except for the language course.

  5. The China Ready Programme will help Singapore lawyers seize new opportunities presented by Singapore’s deepening cooperation with China, including in legal services. China has been Singapore’s largest trading partner and Singapore has been China’s largest foreign investor for six consecutive years since 2013. More Chinese companies are internationalising and expanding their footprint overseas, especially under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). In 2018, Singapore was the largest foreign investment destination for China along the Belt and Road, capturing close to 23% of total investment flow from China to Belt and Road countries.

  6. Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and China President Xi Jinping have identified legal and judicial cooperation as a new area of cooperation between the two countries. In September 2018, it was included as an agenda item under cooperation on the BRI at the Joint Council for Bilateral Cooperation (JCBC) meeting. In November 2018, MinLaw hosted a delegation of 24 lawyers from six leading law firms in the Shaanxi Province for a one-month attachment under the Singapore-Shaanxi Study Visit Programme. In January 2019, MinLaw co-organised the first high level China-Singapore International Commercial Dispute Resolution Conference with the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) in Beijing. The Law Society of Singapore (LawSoc) has led three mission trips involving over 90 lawyers to China since April 2018.

  7. Senior Minister of State Edwin Tong SC said, “Singapore’s deepening collaboration with China in legal services will help open doors for Singapore lawyers. There will be greater awareness of what Singapore lawyers can offer and of how they can work with Chinese law firms to help Chinese companies expand into the region. Through this programme, we hope to expand the pool of China-ready lawyers in Singapore and to encourage and support more of our lawyers to build up new competencies to seize these new opportunities created.”

  8. Deputy Chief Executive Officer of SPH, Anthony Tan said, “The China Ready Programme leverages the expansive global network and resources of SPH Chinese Media Group to develop practical training content for lawyers. In particular, it taps on Lianhe Zaobao’s insightful perspectives on developments in China to ensure that content is relevant to the business needs of Singapore lawyers.”

  9. The inaugural meeting of the Advisory Committee will be held on 6 August 2019, during the Singapore Convention Week. The Singapore Convention Week offers a week-long series of activities for government officials, legal practitioners, in-house counsel, business executives, academics and students from around the world, to discuss the latest developments in dispute resolution. The Singapore Convention Week is organised in conjunction with the Singapore Convention Signing Ceremony and Conference, on 6-7 August 2019.

  10. A subsidiary of SPH, HCEG owns and operates Han Language Centre, which offers Chinese language tuition and enrichment lessons as well as cultural programmes for children. HCEG’s adult learning platform HCE provides courses for Chinese language skills and Chinese business culture acquirement for executives and business learners.

Annex A (0.1MB)

MINISTRY OF LAW
30 JULY 2019

Last updated on 30 Jul 2019