Singapore’s Minister for Sustainability and the Environment Grace Fu. - Borneo Bulletin/ANN
BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN (Borneo Bulletin/ANN): The cooperation between Brunei and Singapore is gaining momentum, said Singapore’s Minister for Sustainability and the Environment Grace Fu during a visit to the capital.
“This is my first visit since December 2022 and am very happy to see the momentum of cooperation is continuing,” said the minister.
She further stated that her party had a very good discussion with Brunei’s Ministry of Development over a wide variety of topics.
In terms of sustainability the Singapore minister noted that Brunei and Singapore share many areas with common challenges, including solid waste management, dealing with large amount of solid waste, plastic pollution, marine debris, air quality issues and transboundary haze.
“These common challenges are not easy to tackle, so we really need to learn from one another,” she said.
“There are many things that we can learn from Brunei. For example the plastic tax and community projects to clean up the river. So we are keen to learn from Brunei.”
She added, “On our part we have the experience in the incineration of our waste. Our waste -to-energy plan has been operating for several years now. And so there is an area we can share.”
The minister also shared that a new addition to the discussion this year is climate change.
“This year’s discussion on climate change has been added to the memorandum of understanding (MoU). Climate change is a very complex problem involving the entire global community,” she said.
In terms of food security, the minister believes Brunei and Singapore share two similar concerns – is stability of supply and food safety.
The minister said since the last meeting in Brunei, good progress has been made.
“We have started getting regular batches of eggs from Brunei,” she added.
Currently, Singapore and Brunei is discussing the possibly of importing other food types from Brunei.
She said next week Singapore will be welcoming a delegation from Brunei, comprising representatives of Ministry of Primary Resources and Tourism, Darussalam Enterprise and food industries.
“We will have a greater discussion on how we can improve the cooperation,” said the Singaporean minister.
“We want to see how Brunei and Singapore can further cooperate more in food production.
“We definitely need to see how we can expand the expertise and knowledge on producing food, and this is an area where we can actually work together to optimise each other’s strengths for mutual benefits.” - Borneo Bulletin/ANN
