SINGAPORE should secure a formal role in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) as Asean’s coordinating partner for funding and financing structuring at AIIB, said OCBC’s chief executive officer Samuel Tsien, adding that Singapore can play a coordinating role in Asean’s relations with China.

The world’s second largest economy has been Asean’s largest trading partner since 2009; bilateral trade volume is expected to reach US$1 trillion by 2020.

Singapore is one of more than 50 prospective founding members of the AIIB, a development bank spearheaded by China that aims to invest and facilitate investments in infrastructure projects in this part of the world.

… Another participant at the forum, ambassador-at-large at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Ong Keng Yong, said there was no turning back on Asean’s economic integration: “Today, in terms of tariffs for goods, they are down to very minimal. The only difficulties we are facing are how to remove or reduce the non-tariff barriers.”

Mr Ong who is also executive deputy chairman of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, cited an example of non-tariff barriers: “Moving from Singapore to Malaysia, you either change the number plate, or you change the driver. You cannot use the same Singapore-registered truck to go all the way to Cambodia.”