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Lawrence Wong wrapped up his first official overseas trip as Deputy Prime Minister to Brunei Darussalam.

The visit, which occurred from Jan. 18 to Jan. 19, was to reaffirm the crucial bilateral relationship between Singapore and Brunei.

During his visit, Wong met with Brunei’s Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, Crown Prince and Senior Minister at the Prime Minister’s Office Haji Al-Muhtadee Billah, Special Adviser to the Sultan and Minister at the Prime Minister’s Office Isa Ibrahim, as well as Brunei’s Minister at the Prime Minister’s Office and Minister of Finance and Economy II Mohd Amin Liew Abdullah.

He also met with the Singaporean community residing in Brunei.

Wong was accompanied by Minister for Foreign Affairs (MFA) Vivian Balakrishnan as well as other government officials from MFA, the Ministry of Finance, and Ministry of Communications and Information.

"Special and long-standing relationship"

In his Facebook post on Jan. 19, Wong highlighted that the visit was to “reaffirm the importance of this relationship” between the “two smallest members of ASEAN”.

He also said that cooperation between Singapore and Brunei in new areas such as education, civil service work attachments, supply chain resilience and the green economy would be boosted.

Wong said that he would “look forward to further exchanges with Brunei” to strengthen their partnership with Singapore.

Singaporeans in Brunei

In an earlier Facebook post on Jan. 18, Wong also expressed gratitude to the Singaporean community in Brunei for sharing their experiences living and working in the country.

In August 2022, Brunei’s Sultan Bolkiah visited Singapore in his fifth state visit here and two memorandums of understanding (MOUs) were signed during that visit.

Top image via MCI - Facebook/Lawrence Wong