French president Francois Hollande is on a two-day state visit to Singapore, which is the first state visit by a sitting president of France. The Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star) and the French embassy organized The France-Singapore Innovation Forum today (27 March).
In a joint declaration, President Hollande and Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsein Loong, said, both the nations have a lot to learn from each other’s experience and approach towards bolstering innovation.
Earlier in October 2012, Singapore and France had inked a Joint Declaration on Strategic Partnership and they share a good cooperation across a wide range of sectors such as defence, cybersecurity and also in the cultural sectors.
They both have agreed to intensify cooperation on innovation to build on the strategic partnership and addressing the fact that innovation fuels transformation of their respective economies and societies for the benefit of the citizens.
In addition, the two leaders announced 2018 as the France-Singapore Year of Innovation, and will organize more events that encourage more collaboration in innovation.
The document mentions they both noted the fact that the considerable synergies and complementarities between the two countries in the area of innovation could be utilized for mutual benefit and for the benefit of the world.
Ten agreements were inked on the forum to smoothen the road for research collaboration in areas including energy access, digital engineering, electric vehicles.
These include an agreement between Autorité de Contrôle Prudentiel et de Résolution and Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to facilitate the development of new technologies in financial services in the two countries as well as various agreements by research and academic institutions of both, France and Singapore.
They also acknowledged that the French Tech Community here has been considered as the focal point for the French entrepreneurial ecosystem in its involvement with the emerging technology sector of Singapore. The French Tech Hub is being developed in association with key Singapore partners and will work with other French Tech Hubs around the world, specifically in Asia once it is formally launched.
The joint statement reiterated the ambition of this project, which is to increase the contribution of the French Tech community in Singapore to the development of the Singapore Tech ecosystem and its interactions with the French Tech ecosystem.
