Singapore, EU sign partnership to strengthen bilateral digital trade

SINGAPORE and the European Union (EU) have signed a digital partnership that will strengthen connectivity and interoperability between both digital markets, enabling people and businesses to transact digitally more seamlessly and at lower costs.

The EU-Singapore Digital Partnership (EUSDP) was signed by Singapore’s Minister-in-charge of Trade Relations S Iswaran and European Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton in Brussels on Wednesday (Feb 1).

The EUSDP will serve as an overarching framework for all areas of bilateral digital cooperation between the EU and Singapore. These include areas in the cross-border digital economy such as digital trade facilitation, trusted data flows, electronic payments, as well as standards and conformance. It will also pave the way for cooperation in new and emerging areas such as artificial intelligence (AI), digital identities, and 5G/6G.

On top of that, the partnership will support the digital upskilling of workers, as well as the digital transformation of businesses and public services.

As a first deliverable of the EUSDP, a set of digital trade principles was launched on Wednesday. The Digital Trade Principles will “mark the first step towards a bilateral digital trade agreement that provides legal certainty for cross-border digital trade”, said Minister Iswaran.

Moving forward, Singapore and the EU will exchange best practices and co-develop projects across areas of the digital economy, in partnership with the private sector, said Minister Iswaran and Commissioner Breton. These include projects on AI governance and standards, digital identities, facilitating cross-border digital transactions, supporting the digital transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises, and digital skills.

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The signing of the EUSDP follows the announcement by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and European Commission President Ursula in December 2022 that negotiations of the agreement had been substantially concluded.

The EU is Singapore’s fourth-largest goods trade partner and second-largest services trade partner globally. In 2021, bilateral trade in goods came to S$102 billion, representing 8.8 per cent of Singapore’s total goods trade; meanwhile, bilateral trade in services exceeded S$67 billion.

The EU is also Singapore’s second-largest foreign investor and largest overseas investment destination.