February 16, 2016

France-Singapore space cooperation - CNES at the Singapore Airshow 2016

France is a guest of honour at this year’s Singapore Airshow where CNES is showcasing the latest advances and innovations in French space research. On this occasion, CNES President Jean-Yves Le Gall met several Singapore space officials, among them Dr. Beh Swan Gin, Chairman of the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB). On the occasion of the state visit to France of Singapore’s President on 18 May 2015, CNES and EDB signed a first cooperation agreement covering space technologies at the Elysée Palace in the presence of French President François Hollande.

Although a relative latecomer to space, Singapore has clearly signalled its ambitions in this domain. EDB is a government agency whose role is to encourage and federate industrial initiatives in Singapore. Its Office for Space Technology and Industry (OSTIn) is in charge of space and promoting international cooperation.

Institutional ties between France and Singapore in space go back to 2013, when CNES began working with Nanyang Technological University (NTU) on the radiation effects induced by lasers in electronic components. To put this initial bilateral relationship on a formal footing, CNES and EDB signed a first cooperation agreement in May 2015.

It is in this context and with France a guest of honour at the Singapore Airshow that Jean-Yves Le Gall met EDB Chairman Dr. Beh Swan Gin. CNES’s President thanked his host for the welcome extended last month to a delegation from the agency that was able to see for itself the quality of Singapore’s dynamic space efforts. The two men then addressed relations between CNES and NTU, which will soon be formalized through an agreement to exchange PhD students and interns. They identified topics of shared interest and will be the subject of a joint seminar to be organized shortly in Singapore. CNES also invited EDB and OSTIn to take part in the roundtable to be held on 28 June during the Toulouse Space Show, at which several heads of space agencies will be present, on the theme ‘New players and international cooperation’. Jean-Yves Le Gall also had talks with Dr. Lim Chuan Poh, Chairman of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), and Jonathan Hung, Chairman of the Singapore Space and Technology Association (SSTA).

After this visit to Singapore, Jean-Yves Le Gall commented: “With France a guest of honour at the Singapore Airshow, these meetings with Singapore space officials show our shared interest in working together. And as CNES is focusing its efforts on innovation, cooperation with Singapore is more than ever on the agenda and we can look forward to nurturing it through the series of rendezvous that lie ahead.”

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Contacts
Pascale Bresson    Tel. +33 (0)1 44 76 75 39    pascale.bresson@cnes.fr
Julien Watelet    Tel. +33 (0)1 44 76 78 37    julien.watelet@cnes.fr

cp030-2016_-_singapour_va.pdf (pdf - 235.7 KB)
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