SINGAPORE (March 26): Singapore and Vietnam signed a letter of intent (LOI) on Wednesday to enhance cooperation in cross-border electricity trade for the Asean Power Grid, exploring to increase the low-carbon electricity imports to the city-state to around two gigawatts (GW) by 2035.

Singapore’s Trade and Industry Ministry (MTI) said this builds on the conditional approval granted by the Energy Market Authority of Singapore to Sembcorp Utilities in October 2023, to import 1.2GW of low-carbon electricity via new subsea cables of around 1,000km, from Vietnam to Singapore.

“The Vietnam and Singapore governments will continue to engage interested companies with credible and commercially viable proposals,” it said in a statement on Wednesday.

The MTI said both countries had under the LOI reaffirmed their shared desire to establish a sustainable, inclusive and resilient Asean Power Grid, comprising multiple energy interconnections akin to those in other regions, to advance Asean’s shared vision of multilateral and multidirectional cross-border power trade and enhanced energy security.

The LOI builds on the memorandum of understanding on energy cooperation between Singapore and Vietnam signed in 2022, and the joint report on offshore wind power trade cooperation between both countries, which was endorsed this year.

It was signed by Singapore’s Second Minister for Trade and Industry Dr Tan See Leng and Vietnam’s Industry and Trade Minister Nguyen Hong Dien, witnessed by the prime ministers of both countries, in Vietnam.

“This LOI reflects our enhanced level of ambition to support not just cross-border electricity trade between our two countries, but the broader development of a sustainable, inclusive, and resilient Asean Power Grid,” Tan, who is also manpower minister, said in the statement.

Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, accompanied by Tan and other ministers, have been in Vietnam since Tuesday (March 25) for an official visit at the invitation of Vietnam Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh.

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