Building on our city’s strong connections with Singapore and renewing tourism, trade, business and investment opportunities will be the focus for a trade mission led by the Chief Minister Andrew Barr this week.
The mission which spans trade, investment, tourism promotion, education and health shows a strong commitment to Singapore which is essential to support our ambition to see the return of international airline services.
The Chief Minister will meet with senior representatives from Singapore Airlines, the Singapore Tourism Board and the Minister-in-charge of Trade Relations for the Singapore Government to work towards the return of international flights as well as increased tourism and trade opportunities between the two jurisdictions.
Strengthening these connections will continue to support the recovery of Canberra’s tourism industry back to the $2.5 billion in visitor expenditure recorded pre-pandemic.
The ACT Government is also pursuing opportunities to attract further investment into Canberra and our local businesses in line with our responsible investment values. This includes opportunities to promote the recently released Build-To-Rent affordable housing model.
Cultural connections are also being renewed with the re-signing and expansion of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Singapore Botanic Gardens and the National Arboretum Canberra to also include our sister City Wellington through the Wellington Botanic Garden. Over the last four years, the two original parties have worked together on staff exchanges and learning opportunities.
The mission will also support local businesses with their activities in Singapore, including Agri-gate who are exporting premium regional produce into Singapore.
The Chief Minister will also tour the Temasek Polytechnic Cyber Training Security Operations Centre to investigate how they’ve developed relationships with industry and whether a similar facility at CIT campus – Woden could benefit Canberra’s local industry.
Minister for Health, Rachel Stephen-Smith will join the latter part of the trade mission with a focus on health and wellbeing.
Minister Stephen-Smith will tour multiple health facilities, in particular Ng Teng Fong General Hospital and Tan Tock Seng Hospital to observe the impact of the recent ‘go-live’ with the Epic Digital Health Record – the same system that will be implemented across the ACT public hospital and health system in November 2022 and to learn more about health infrastructure and systems design.
She will meet with officials to learn more about how technology, innovation and workforce initiatives are supporting the Singapore health system.
The Minister will also visit the Bukit Canberra facility – a uniquely designed sport and community hub – giving the neighbourhood of Sembawang a holistic facility for active living and wellness.
The cost of the Chief Minister’s delegation is approximately $21,500. The cost of the Health Minister’s delegation is approximately $13,500. These costs are fully met from within the ACT Executive budget and published in the quarterly Ministerial travel reports.
Source: Australian Capital Territory
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