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#FridayFive from the Executive Director: 19 April 2024

By David Kelly, Executive Director, British Chamber of Commerce Singapore

 

WHAT. A. WEEK - Singapore Maritime Week (SMW) , the news of a change of PM in Singapore, our Annual Economic Briefing, Ecosperity, and the soft launch of our Digital Trade Pilots programme, here are my hashtag#FridayFive (this is hard!!) for this week at the British Chamber of Commerce Singapore (BritCham).

  1. Climate Champions – we hosted a sensational session at the Chamber during SMW, with maritime companies and governments represented from Singapore, UK, Tonga, Denmark, Kenya, Tuvalu, and the US, on green shipping. I really do think Climate Champions help to "move the needle" by creating excellent discussions with decision makers. Great to also welcome Eng Dih Teo and his team, and of course the brilliant Katharine Palmer. 
  2. Economic Briefing – a superstar line up (Edward Selena 王君豪HengKoonHow Ravi Lutfey) for our Annual Economic Briefing for members. The importance of the US, China, elections, financial head wins were all discussed. If you missed this one, you need to get to the next one that we put on as our panel made the economic climate digestible for all businesses. A fab session. View the photo gallery here. 
  3. Trade Digitalisation – delighted to welcome both Kara Owen and Martin Kent to the launch of a Digitalisation of supply chains programme together with LogChain. A panel discussion (another fab set of speakers: Simon Nimisha Andrew Louise) on findings, successes, hurdles and next steps. It’s simply an awesome project to showcase our progress on driving digital change across SG, UK and Thailand (and will get its own dedicated post!). Thanks to Gary Hardy from Big C Supercenter Public Company Limited too for appearing by video, hosted at member company Swissotel & thanks also to our video member AsiaWorks.
  4. UK Visitors in Singapore - welcomed guests to the Chamber - Lovely to meet Sarah from Innovate UK and Paul, Yan and Jessica from Odgers Berndtson and Prashant and Nilesh from o2h group (thanks Raakhi and Steven). Damian and I also met with the UK-ASEAN Business Council (UKABC). There were so many industry friends I didn't see across SMW that I was hoping to - sorry :( and hope to see you soon... 
  5. UK Ties – we met with the NORTHERN IRELAND CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY talking UK-SG connectivity and trade, and, Simon and Andy were in the UK for us with the British Chambers of Commerce (& Sara) for a Presidents Lunch with Martha Lane Fox. Thanks also to our colleagues at the British High Commission for engaging us in meetings with the Department for Transport (DfT), United Kingdom.