IN THE 2030s, visitors landing at Changi Airport will have their luggage transported from the airplane to the gate by a driverless robot as they stroll through a gleaming Terminal 5.

They may not immediately realise, however, that this scene is the result of the ambitious partnership between the United Kingdom and Singapore. Both the driverless baggage dollies and the terminal are designed by British companies providing services to this very modern nation.

Heatherwick Studio is the joint architect of the terminal, while Aurrigo has just agreed to provide autonomous vehicles to Changi – the first airport in the world to test such technology.

Over the past few years, we have grown UK-Singapore trade to a landmark £20 billion (S$32.8 billion).

The number of UK companies here has increased from a pre-pandemic 4,500 to 5,700 today, bringing top class UK products and services such as those offered by Aurrigo and Heatherwick.

These figures are set to grow even further now that the UK has concluded its negotiations to join the 11-member Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), of which Singapore is a founding member.

GET BT IN YOUR INBOX DAILY

Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox.

Sign UpVIEW ALL

The UK’s accession will take the combined gross domestic product (GDP) of the bloc to £11 trillion, or 15 per cent of global GDP. Businesses in the CPTPP will enjoy greater access to the UK’s market of 67 million consumers – the world’s sixth largest economy.

Many Singaporeans are already familiar with successful British brands such as Burberry, Rolls Royce, Wise and Deliveroo. There will be many more joining them in time to come, creating jobs and opportunities across the country.

Yet, the UK’s membership is more than just about trade and investment. It says something about the type of country we are and what we want the future to look like.

As a champion for free and fair trade, the UK will take the CPTPP from a Pacific trade agreement to a global one – with greater influence to shape global trade, remove barriers and reinforce the rules-based international system at a critical time in our history.

It is also clear evidence that we meant what we said about investing more in the Indo-Pacific region.

Singapore already receives £11.4 billion in foreign direct investments from the UK. We expect this number to grow higher due to CPTPP’s guarantees on treatment of investments and our negotiations on a new Bilateral Investment Treaty which launched this week.

Our CPTPP membership sits alongside an already highly developed set of trade agreements between UK and Singapore.

In 2021, the UK-Singapore Free Trade Agreement entered into force, eliminating more than 80 per cent of UK tariffs on Singapore products. All remaining UK tariffs will be progressively eliminated by November 2024, completely liberalising trade in goods.

The UK-Singapore Digital Economy Agreement (DEA) came into force last June, and is a marker of our shared ambition to set the rules of the road for digital trade. It is the world’s most innovative trade agreement, and deepens the partnership between two tech powerhouses.

But it’s not enough just to have these agreements. We also need to support companies to use them.

Hot on the heels of the DEA coming into force, we hosted 24 British tech companies last year for the DEA Stakeholder Dialogue, which included companies working on driverless vehicles, lawtech, cybersecurity and deeptech.

They met with Singapore government agencies including the Cyber Security Agency; Defence Science and Technology Agency; GovTech; the Infocomm Media Development Authority and the Ministry of Law.

In February, we inked the Green Economy Framework with Singapore – the first of its kind for the UK. The framework will not only create jobs and export opportunities in both our countries, but also support our net-zero ambitions and the development of a vibrant green economy private sector that can have an impact beyond our two nations.

Initially we will focus on three areas: sustainable financing (carbon markets), green transport and low carbon energy (hydrogen and carbon capture).

This week marks the end of the UK’s negotiations to join CPTPP, but our economic partnerships with Singapore and the rest of the bloc have just begun to take off.

Together with our friends in the CPTPP, we look forward to building the future of free and fair trade.

Kara Owen is British High Commissioner to Singapore, and Natalie Black is His Majesty’s Trade Commissioner for Asia-Pacific.