Over the past several years the North Dakota Trade Office has been working to build trade relations between North Dakota and Singapore. Ashok Kumar Mirpuri is Singapore ambassador to the United States and had the chance this week to meet with area business leaders about the trade opportunities that exist with Singapore. He says it’s an ideal situation to talk about because North Dakota and Singapore are two very unlikely partners…
“…Because we are on opposite sides of the world, and we’re a sea-borne country and you are a land-locked state. You’ve got lots of agriculture, we’ve got no agriculture. Yet there’s so much complimentarity because we can work with North Dakota companies and there are things are companies can do for North Dakota as well. This morning we were talking to people doing unmanned aircraft systems. We have no airspace around Singapore, yet we have the technology. And this becomes places we can consider some of these ideas. Energy – I didn’t make it out to the Bakken – but Singapore has become a very major energy hub for oil and gas in the Asian-Pacific and I am sure there are some complimentary things we can do.”
Mirpuri says Asian Pacific nations are working to bring their economies closer together with the U-S. He says ideas are flowing on how to make it easier for exports and to get services across. Mirpuri says by doing so, it will let North Dakota companies look at new markets in places they traditionally have not been looking at.