Welcome to the Official page of the Presidency of the Portuguese Republic

Both my Wife and I have the greatest pleasure in receiving Your Excellency, Mister President, Mrs. Mary Tan, and the distinguished retinue that accompanies you on this State Visit to Portugal.

Your Excellency’s visit - the first State Visit of a Singaporean President to Portugal – is a new milestone in the deepening of the bilateral relations between our countries. This is thus a very special occasion.

I hope that Your Excellency’s Visit somehow allows our reciprocating the warm hospitality with which we were welcomed in Singapore, in 2012, in that which in turn was the first visit of a Portuguese Head of State to your Country.

Mister President,

We are living a new stage in the relations between Portugal and Singapore. The excellence of the bilateral relationship we are celebrating today is the result of solid and consistent travail. The opening of the Embassy in Singapore, in 2009, was a symbol of Portugal’s clear stake in its relations with this Asian country. And this was certainly a fruitful stake, as I was well able to perceive both in 2012, in Singapore, as I did today, in Portugal.

On political grounds, contacts were never so intense and productive as at this time. Multilaterally, we share a set of common views on important international issues, as was clearly visible when our presidencies of the EU and ASEAN coincided, in 2007.

Economically, the growing dynamics of our trading relations is outstanding. Singapore is, nowadays, amongst all the ASEAN countries, the main market for Portuguese exports. Where investment is concerned, Portugal has revealed itself as an opportunity for Singapore, in strategic sectors such as sea ports and tourism. The presence of Portuguese enterprises in Singapore has also been showing appreciable growth.

And, simultaneously, the excellence of our human resources has been benefiting, in Singapore, from a wide recognition.

Mister President,

I am pleased to welcome the entrepreneurial delegation which accompanies you. I hope that their contacts in Portugal are fruitful, such as was the case when I travelled to Singapore, in 2012, with the contacts established by the entrepreneurial retinue that accompanied me. I equally hope that the Economic Seminar that will take place tomorrow will be, in this respect, particularly useful. The success of entrepreneurial contacts naturally motivates us to encourage other trading and investment initiatives between both countries.

Portugal and Singapore have been able to successfully exploit their privileged geographic areas.

Portugal has viewed Singapore as a prominent entrance gate to Asia. Portuguese companies located in Singapore have successfully exploited business opportunities in Southeast Asia, taking advantage of Singapore’s geographically central position and of the virtues of its model of economic development.
In its turn, Portugal, with the enlargement of the Panama Canal, will see its geo-strategic position propelled to a new centralized position in relation to Asia itself. In this context, it is worth while emphasizing that Singapore was early on aware of the advantages in investing in our deep sea port, in Sines.

Mister President,

The contacts between our peoples are centuries old. It so happens that Portugal and Singapore have only rediscovered each other in the last few years. Your Excellency’s State Visit, for which I once again express my satisfaction, signals the political determination to strengthen the ties of friendship and cooperation that unite us.

It is in this spirit that I ask you all to join me in a toast to the health and prosperity of President Tony Tan and Mrs. Mary Tan, to our friends, the people of Singapore, and to the future of our relations.