US Business Interest in Singapore Triples Due to FTA: US Officials

SINGAPORE - The number of new US firms doing business in Singapore has tripled over the past year despite security and political con cerns in Southeast Asia, the US ambassador to Singapore, Frank Lavin, said on Wednesday.

Mr Lavin credited the increase to the US-Singapore Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and the active participation of US commercial affairs officials in promoting business opportunities in the region.

'This has been a tough year for Southeast Asia. There's been a lot of political turbulence, there's been economic turbulence and some terrorist activities,' he said at a security and safety conference here.

Attacks such as the August bomb blast at the American-owned JW Marriott Hotel in Jakarta that killed 12 people worsened investor perceptions of the business environment in the region, he said.

'But even though it was a tough year ... there was a lot of good news on the corporate front, on the commercial front, on the economic front,' Mr Lavin said.

The number of new US companies that have set up representative offices and sold products in Singapore in the year to September tripled from the previous year, he said.

Mr Lavin said the FTA, signed last month and to take effect on January 1 next year, has 'had a dramatic effect in the US corporate mindset because it was a very strong statement about the ease of doing business in Singapore.'

George Ruffner, counsellor for commercial affairs at the US embassy, said the US companies coming to Singapore were often small- and medium-sized enterprises venturing into Asia for the first time.