Former Kyrgyz President Roza Otunbaeva meets with the Minister of Trade and Industry of Singapore

Former President KR RI Otunbayeva met February 4th with the Minister of Trade and Industry of Singapore, Mr. Lim Hung Kiangom (Lim Hng Kiang). Singapore has made an application for accession to the free trade agreement with the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), to which several dozen countries also show interest in joining. The negotiations with the Kyrgyz side are scheduled in March and April of this year, while that of Singapore trade and economic ties with Central Asia remain at an insignificant level. Singapore, rather, acts as a technology investor in a number of countries in our region, and, with its extensive experience in economics and finance and with innovation and advanced technology, is laying the foundations of the infrastructure of large industrial facilities. As the fourth financial market in the world, Singapore is actively working with developed, well-established countries in Southeast Asia, and is not in a hurry to invest in new, unexplored markets. Currently, Singapore offers us in Kyrgyzstan a number of short-term trainings for specialists in a number of very important technical fields, but unfortunately, they are not being filled over the years because of an ignorance or poor knowledge of English among our candidates.

Otunbayeva also met with the director of the School of Management of the Lee Kuan Yew of the National University of Singapore, Professor Kishore Mahbubani, as well as with the leadership of the Razharatnama School of International Relations at Nanyang Technological University, where they discussed issues of cooperation, including training of graduate students and doctoral students from our republic. Both schools have shown a keen interest to our competitors, ready to assist in the preparation and formation of government service personnel with knowledge of the region of Southeast Asia.

At Singapore’s Ministry of Education, R. Otunbayeva met with the leadership of an Agency created several years ago specially created for the early development of children, and visited a number of pre-schools and cultural institutions in the country with an emphasis on the work of children of early age.