Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul to make official visit to Singapore on Nov 7
Thailand says it will sell up to 100,000 tonnes of rice to Singapore over five years in new deal pending signing
[SINGAPORE] Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul will make an official visit to Singapore on Friday (Nov 7) at the invitation of Prime Minister and Finance Minister Lawrence Wong.
The one-day trip marks Anutin’s first to Singapore since he took on the top job in September, and takes place as the two South-east Asian neighbours commemorate six decades of diplomatic relations.
The visit is also Anutin’s fourth overseas trip as prime minister – following an official visit to Laos on Oct 16; another to Malaysia on Oct 25, ahead of the 47th Asean Summit; and a trip to South Korea for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) meetings.
Both prime ministers will hold a bilateral meeting and witness the exchange of two memoranda of understanding on food security and healthcare, said Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a statement on Thursday.
Rice deals
No further details on the agreements have been officially released from the Singapore side.
According to an official release on the Royal Thai Government’s website, under a government-to-government rice pact, Thailand will sell up to 100,000 tonnes of rice to Singapore upon the latter’s request, at prevailing international market prices.
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The deal is said to span five years upon its signing, with a renewal option for successive five-year periods.
For reference, Singapore imported 112,744 tonnes of rice from Thailand – about a quarter of the quantity of its total rice imports – in 2024, according to data from the World Integrated Trade Solution (Wits).
The statement added that the Singapore Food Agency and the Thai Ministry of Commerce’s Department of Foreign Trade will be designated the implementing agencies.
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Last week, Singapore inked its first-ever rice trade pact with a trading partner with Vietnam, with the latter supporting the “unimpeded export of a mutually agreed quantity” of the cereal grain.
Singapore – which imports more than 90 per cent of its food – relies mainly on India, Thailand and Vietnam for rice.
Last year, the island nation bought some US$110.9 million worth of rice from India, the source of roughly a third of its gross rice imports by trade value, showed Wits data. Singapore purchased nearly US$103.1 million worth of the cereal grain from Thailand; and some US$96.5 million from Vietnam.
Other high-level exchanges
PM Wong and Anutin met earlier in Kuala Lumpur on the sidelines of the Asean Summit on Oct 27, after which both leaders headed to South Korea for the Apec meetings.
Before that, Thai Foreign Affairs Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow made an introductory two-day visit to Singapore from Oct 21 to 22, where he officiated the opening ceremony of the 15th Singapore-Thailand Civil Service Exchange Programme.
On Monday, Singapore Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong was in Bangkok, where he was hosted to tea by Anutin. SM Lee, accompanied by his wife Ho Ching, took a day trip to the Thai capital to pay his respects to the late Queen Mother Sirikit, who died aged 93 in late October.
Last November, PM Wong made his introductory visit to Bangkok, and was the first foreign head of government hosted by then prime minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra.
Anutin took office as prime minister on Sep 7 before his Cabinet was sworn in on Sep 24, forming the kingdom’s third administration in two years.
Pioneering partnership
Singapore and Thailand – both founding members of Asean – cooperate closely in traditional areas of economy and defence, as well as in emerging areas such as the digital and green economies.
Singapore was Thailand’s largest source of foreign direct investment as at 2024, at S$14.3 billion or 43 per cent of the kingdom’s total such applications, according to data from Singapore’s Ministry of Trade and Industry.
Both countries were each other’s ninth-largest trading partners, with bilateral trade in 2024 amounting to S$44.5 billion, representing a 6.4 per cent jump from the year before.
The neighbours were also responsible for launching in 2021 the world’s first linkage of real-time payment systems between Singapore’s PayNow and Thailand’s PromptPay; and Asean’s first exchange-level depository receipts cooperation in 2023.
Thailand was also the first South-east Asian country with which Singapore inked a carbon credit transfer agreement, earlier in August.
Both nations are also part of the Lao PDR-Thailand-Malaysia-Singapore Power Integration Project; the Republic has imported up to 100 megawatts of renewable hydropower from Laos, via Thailand and Malaysia.
Tourism-wise, some 680,000 Singaporeans visited Thailand in the first nine months of this year, while around 450,000 visitors from the kingdom visited Singapore in 2023.
This visit will see Anutin, who is also the kingdom’s interior minister, call on Singapore President Tharman Shanmugaratnam. Anutin will also stop by the National Orchid Garden, where a new orchid hybrid will be named in his honour, before being hosted to an official lunch by PM Wong.
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