Orbán to visit Singapore this fall

Officials are preparing the next round of bilateral talks between Hungary and Singapore: Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is due to visit Singapore in October or November this year - Non-Resident Ambassador to Hungary Justice (Ret.) MPH Rubin told Diplomacy&Trade in June. He also spoke about Singapore’s legal system and gave a short summary of the political scope in his country.

"As the next important step in the development of our relationship, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is to visit Singapore in October or November this year. We look forward to his visit and hope that it will give another push to the dynamic development of bilateral political and economic cooperation" - Ambassador Rubin said in Budapest in the middle of June when he accompanied the Speaker of the Singaporean Parliament Halimah Yacob on her official visit to Hungary.

No details have emerged yet about the Prime Minister's visit but the Ambassador was sure Orbán and his counterparts would focus on economic cooperation. He noted that a group of businesspeople will probably join Orbán as in the past when the Prime Minister has visited a country which is a target in his government's Eastern Opening strategy.

Speaking about the history of Singapore and the current social and legal system, Rubin emphasized that the impact of Great Britain has been very important. Under British rule a stable legal system was established. Meanwhile, Singapore became a medium sized city with a big port which was the magnet for commercial vessels across the region. Much of the British Empire earned independence after the Second World War, Singapore did it in an union with Malaysia in 1963. "But this did not last long, leaders of the two countries had different views on the future, subsequently our state was founded in 1965" - he recalled the separation gently.

Referring to the first months of the young state he said:"Everyone outside Singapore expected a sharp economic downturn and many of Asian politicians were even convinced that Singapore would soon disappear. But the leaders of our country decided to build factories and invited people from outside; a lot of immigrants came to us. Foreign companies also entered the market, as they were offered a business friendly tax and labor system. So that is how we managed to start building a new life."

Though ethnic Chinese form the majority of Singapore’s population, it has kept the English language as the most important and that helped to attract international investors too. The four languages that are recognized by the government are: English, Malay, Mandarin, and Tamil, English is commonly used.

The legal system was also familiar to many foreign investors as Singapore inherited it from the English with only slight modifications. "We have a strong legislative, executive and judicial system that is based on English common law but in the case of corporate law, we did not mind borrowing from Australia and our Criminal Law was borrowed from India and Sri Lanka. To give you another example of our advanced legal system, our Arbitration Law is recognized by all states and Singapore has become an arbitration center in Southeast Asia", - he explained.

Concerning political life in Singapore, the ambassador pointed out that though the leading party has been ruling for many decades, elections are fair and no outside official body has ever questioned this since the 1960s. "There is no manipulation of results and we are proud that in Transparency International's Corruption Index Singapore has been among the top countries for long, practically not having corruption at all", - he added.