President Tharman to head to Mexico on Nov 30 for 4-day trip in first state visit to Latin America
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
President Tharman Shanmugaratnam will be making his first state visit to Mexico from Nov 30 to Dec 3.
PHOTO: MDDI
Follow topic:
- President Tharman's Mexico state visit from Nov 30-Dec 3 commemorates 50 years of Singapore-Mexico ties.
- Tharman will meet President Sheinbaum and inaugurate an exhibition.
- Mexico is Singapore's second-largest Latin American trading partner; trade reached $11.6 billion in 2024.
AI generated
MEXICO CITY - President Tharman Shanmugaratnam will be in Mexico from Nov 30 to Dec 3 for his first state visit to Latin America. His visit, at the invitation of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, will also commemorate 50 years of diplomatic ties between Singapore and Mexico.
It comes after several recent ministerial-level meetings with Mexican counterparts.
In end-October, Minister for Sustainability and the Environment Grace Fu met Mexico’s Secretary of Economy Marcelo Ebrard Casaubon on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Ministerial Meeting in South Korea. Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan met his counterpart Juan Ramon de la Fuente Ramirez on the sidelines of the 80th United Nations General Assembly in New York in September.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Nov 29 that President Tharman will be accorded a state welcome at the National Palace in Mexico City and meet Ms Sheinbaum.
He will also have meetings with head of government of Mexico City Clara Brugada, president of the Senate Laura Itzel Castillo Juarez, as well as senators and governors of various Mexican states and business leaders.
During the trip, Mr Tharman will inaugurate the opening of a new exhibition at a museum in Mexico City that will feature close to 80 works from Singapore’s National Collection alongside loans from Mexico and beyond. Titled The Acapulco – Manila Galleon: We Are the Pacific, A World Born Of The Tropics, the exhibition will be presented by the Asian Civilisations Museum (ACM) and National Gallery Singapore as part of efforts to mark 50 years of diplomatic relations.
Both countries have signed several cultural agreements over the years between their respective national cultural institutions.
From November 2023 to March 2024, the National Gallery Singapore hosted an exhibition called Tropical: Stories From South-east Asia And Latin America, bringing together works by Singapore artists Cheong Soo Pieng and Mohammad Din Mohammad as well as Mexican artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera.
The Asian Civilisations Museum also loaned objects from several Mexican institutions for the Manila Galleon: From Asia To The Americas exhibition from November 2023 to March 2024.
In return, the ACM loaned a contemporary ship model of an 18th-century Manila galleon to the Acapulco Historical Museum of Fort San Diego as part of the El Galeon de Acapulco-Manila y el Fuerte de San Diego exhibition from September 2024 to October 2025.
As part of his visit, Mr Tharman will lay a wreath at the Monument to the Heroic Cadets, a national monument that honours six teenage military cadets killed in a 1847 battle. He will also inaugurate the opening of the Mexico-Singapore Business Forum.
Mr Tharman will be accompanied on the trip by his spouse, Mrs Jane Ittogi Shanmugaratnam, Acting Minister for Culture, Community and Youth as well as Senior Minister of State for Education David Neo, Minister of State for National Development and for Trade and Industry Alvin Tan, and MPs Ang Wei Neng and Mariam Jaafar.
Officials from various ministries and government agencies will also be part of the delegation.
A business delegation, led by the Singapore Business Federation and the Singapore Manufacturing Federation, will be on the visit as well.
Singapore’s last state visit to Mexico was by then President Tony Tan in June 2016 at the invitation of then President Enrique Pena Nieto.
In November 2019, then Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong made an official visit to Mexico
Mexico was Singapore’s second-largest trading partner in Latin America in 2024, with bilateral trade amounting to $11.6 billion. The top-traded products were electronics and machinery. Bilateral trade in services for 2023 was $4.1 billion, mainly in engineering and technical services.
Mexico is also a net producer of beef, seafood, as well as fruits and vegetables. In 2024, Singapore imported 20,000 tonnes of agricultural and food products from Mexico valued at $69 million.
More than 50 Singapore-based companies have a presence in Mexico, including property development group Banyan Tree, commodities trading company Olam and logistics firm PSA.
Singapore’s existing ties with Latin America include a free trade agreement with regional trade bloc Pacific Alliance (PA) signed in January 2022 ratified by Singapore, Peru and Chile
Singapore will formally become the first associated state of the PA when all four member states ratify the agreement.
Trade between Singapore and the member states currently accounts for about 30 per cent of Singapore’s trade with Latin America.
The PA is a rapidly growing economic bloc, representing 38 per cent of Latin America’s gross domestic product and a market of approximately 235 million people. All four countries in the bloc are among Singapore’s top 10 trading partners in Latin America.
