Prime Minister Lawrence Wong with his Japanese counterpart Sanae Takaichi. This is his first official visit to Japan as prime minister.

Singapore, Japan upgrade ties to strategic partnership

TOKYO (The Straits Times/ANN) --  Singapore and Japan have upgraded their bilateral ties, with deeper cooperation planned in a wide range of areas, from artificial intelligence to the green transition.
Prime Minister Lawrence Wong and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi announced on March 18 that the two countries have elevated their ties to a strategic partnership, in conjunction with the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations.
The strategic partnership will deepen the foundations of the substantive and multifaceted relationship between both countries, and expand cooperation in five forward-looking areas, said a joint statement issued after both leaders and their delegations met at the Prime Minister’s Office in Tokyo.
These areas are: promoting free trade and economic cooperation; digitalisation and technology; security and defence; green transition and energy cooperation; and partnership and exchanges.
Among the new agreements was the establishment of an information and communications technology policy dialogue between Singapore’s Ministry of Digital Development and Information and its Japanese counterpart. This will allow both sides to explore cooperation in the digital fields, including digital infrastructure development, said the statement.
The two sides also agreed to deepen their partnership in AI to build a safe, secure and trustworthy AI ecosystem. This includes areas such as AI safety and governance, as well as AI models that respect local languages and cultures.
The two countries will also promote research cooperation to advance cutting-edge fields such as AI, quantum, future communications and next-generation semiconductors.
Speaking at the start of the delegation meeting, PM Wong said Japan has been a reliable and valuable partner for Singapore in the past 60 years.
“Today, our relationship has matured, and we have become partners with similar strategic outlooks and complementary strengths, and our cooperation is multifaceted, substantial and mutually beneficial,” he said.
Japan and Singapore share similar principles and views of the world, and there is a strategic imperative to further deepen bilateral cooperation, given the profound changes in the world today, he added.
“As like-minded partners, I believe we can work together to uphold a multilateral, rules-based system, and an open and inclusive regional architecture,” said PM Wong.
Ms Takaichi said she hoped that both countries would in 2026 further deepen their “already strong ties” through diverse exchanges and programmes.
“Our two nations, as like-minded countries, have together defended and promoted rules-based, free and open international order and free trade,” she said in Japanese.

(Latest Update March 20, 2026)