Speech By Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong at the Standards and Conformance Gala Dinner

President of ISO, Dr Khaled Soufi

President of IEC, Mr James Matthews

Chairman, Global ACI, Mr Brahim Houla

Your Excellencies

Distinguished guests,


Ladies and Gentlemen,

1. Good evening. Thank you for joining us as Singapore marks 60 years of Standards and 40 years of Accreditation.

2. This milestone is meaningful not only for Singapore, but also for the many partners in this room who have helped build the international systems of trust that global trade depends on.

3. All of you here – standards bodies, accreditation agencies, regulators, industry leaders, experts, and testing, inspection and certification (or TIC) providers – all play an essential role in making trade possible, innovation scalable, and markets more reliable.

4. We meet at a time when this work has never been more important.

5. Globalisation is not disappearing. But it is changing.

   1. Supply chains are being reorganised.

   2. Technology is advancing faster than governance system can catch up.

   3. Sustainability requirements are becoming more complex.

   4. And businesses entering new markets increasingly face unclear rules, different requirements, and duplicated testing and certification, yet unsure over whether their products, services and technologies will eventually be approved.

6. For companies, this raises cost and uncertainty. For regulators, it increases the challenge of protecting the public interest while keeping pace with innovation. For consumers and citizens, it comes down to a critical question: can the products, services and technologies we use be trusted?

7. In this environment, Standards and Conformance, or S&C, takes on renewed importance.

8. Trust across borders has to be built into systems.

   1. Standards provide a common language.

   2. Testing, inspection and certification provide evidence.

   3. Accreditation gives confidence that the evidence is credible.

   4. Mutual recognition allows that confidence to be accepted beyond where it was first created.

9. Together, these form the backbone of global commerce. They may not always make headlines. But without them, trade slows, innovation fragments, and confidence weakens.

10. As a small and open economy, Singapore’s prosperity depends on being connected to the world. But in today’s environment, that alone is no longer enough. We must also be reliable and trusted.

11. Over the decades, Singapore has worked with many of you to build a quality infrastructure that supports trade, innovation and public confidence.

12. Tonight, I am pleased to launch Singapore’s Standards and Conformance 2035 roadmap, or S&C 2035.

13. S&C 2035 will strengthen Singapore’s National Quality Infrastructure for resilience and growth, and to contribute positively towards building an interconnected and trusted global economy.

14. At its heart is the ambition to build and deepen trust, so that assurance earned in one market can be recognised, understood and accepted in another.

15. S&C 2035 rests on three pillars.

Driving economic growth

16. The first pillar is to drive economic growth. Standards and conformance are tools for competitiveness, not just compliance.

17. When companies build standards into their products, services and processes early, they are more ready to scale.

    1. They can meet regulatory expectations more confidently.

    2. They can connect with supply chains more easily.

    3. They can compete not only on cost, but also on quality, reliability, safety and sustainability.

18. This is especially important in fast-growing sectors – such as artificial intelligence, clean energy, advanced manufacturing, medical technology and digital systems – where trust frameworks are still developing.

19. For innovative enterprises, S&C should not be an afterthought, added only when a product is ready for export. It should be part of how products are designed, tested, produced and brought to market from the beginning and throughout the process.

20. Standards become a lever for growth and create value that customers and regulators can trust.

Building a future-ready S&C ecosystem

21. The second pillar is to build a future-ready S&C ecosystem.

22. The fast pace of change means that standards cannot just respond to the market after the fact. In some areas, they must help shape the market before practices diverge too far.

23. This is particularly true for emerging technologies such as AI, where approaches to safety, transparency, accountability and interoperability are still evolving.

    1. If countries and industries develop entirely separate approaches, we risk creating fragmented systems that will be difficult and costly to reconcile later.

24. Pre-standardisation allows stakeholders to work together early before standards and regulations are formalised.

    1. I am glad to note that we have signed an MOU with the British Standards Institution, Korean Agency for Technology and Standards, Standards Australia, and the Standards Council of Canada on AI pre-standardisation.

    2. This collaboration will support work on AI governance, testing and certification, including knowledge exchange, technical collaboration, cross-border pilots and coordination at international standards forums.

    3. The value of such collaboration lies not in any one country setting rules for others, but in partners building common ground together, so that new technologies can be deployed with greater confidence, safety and interoperability.

25. A future-ready ecosystem also requires strong TIC capabilities and talent.

    1. Standards on paper must be matched by competence and credible testing, inspection, certification and accreditation in practice.

    2. We will work with our partners to build deeper capabilities in areas such as sustainability assurance, carbon measurement, cybersecurity, digital trust and AI assurance.

Strengthening Singapore’s role in regional and global S&C ecosystems

26. The third pillar is to strengthen Singapore’s role as a trusted partner in regional and global S&C ecosystems.

27. For Singapore, this means building bridges – between international standards and regional needs, between regulators and businesses, and between emerging technologies and trusted market access.

28. In a more fragmented world, harmonisation and mutual recognition become even more valuable.

    1. Where assurance is robust, recognition should be able to travel.

    2. Tested once; accepted in many places – this remains an important aspiration for the S&C community.

29. Within ASEAN, important foundations have already been built through Mutual Recognition Agreements and harmonised standards.

    1. But we also recognise that regional circumstances differ.

    2. Standards must therefore be internationally connected, while also being relevant to the realities of the markets they serve.

30. Singapore will continue to work with our ASEAN partners to deepen standards cooperation, build capacity, and support greater coherence in areas such as energy, sustainability, digitalisation and emerging technologies.

    1. In this regard, I am glad to note that we have signed a capacity-building MOU on AI standards and conformance with Southeast Asian partners, starting with the National Commission for the Standards, Metrology and Quality of Viet Nam, and the National Standardization Agency of Indonesia.

    2. This will support knowledge exchange, promote interoperability of governance and assurance frameworks, and explore possible regional-level collaboration and guidance.

    3. This will benefit the wider region by giving companies greater confidence to operate across markets, and in turn strengthen the region’s connections to global flows of trade, technology and investment.

Conclusion

31. The next decade will test the global trading system in many ways. There will be pressure to build separate systems, to localise rules, and to treat standards as instruments of protection.

32. Singapore believes there is a better path. Standards and conformance should help keep markets open, innovation trusted, and economies connected. S&C should instead be an instrument of cooperation. This is the spirit behind S&C 2035.

33. No country or institution can do this alone. Many of you have been part of Singapore’s S&C journey over many years. You have helped shape standards, deepen accreditation recognition, build technical capabilities, and advance mutual trust across borders.

34. As we enter this next chapter, we invite you to continue that journey with us.

    1. When trust can travel, trade can flow.

    2. When standards connect, innovation can scale.

    3. And when partners choose common ground, the global economy becomes stronger.

35. Thank you, and I wish you a fruitful evening ahead.