Liz Truss and Singapore’s S. Iswaran sat at video screens on 28 June 2021. They opened formal talks on a Digital Economy Agreement. The goal: cut cross-border barriers on data flows, fintech and cybersecurity. The pact, officials said, should be done before year’s end.
This is not a sudden move. It is the latest step in a long arc. Britain left the EU single market on 31 December 2020. Since then, London has signed trade agreements from — and the list keeps growing. The Indo-Pacific is the prize. Singapore is the gateway.
Numbers tell part of the story. Singapore is the UK’s second-largest commercial partner in south-east Asia. It already buys more than £8 billion of British services annually. That is a lot of legal advice, fintech platforms and cybersecurity contracts. Truss made that point herself. “Locking in high-standard rules for digital commerce will help our fintech, legal and cyber-security exporters scale up even faster,” she told reporters after the call.
The first round of talks will focus on the nuts and bolts: paperless trading, securing end-to-end digital supply chains, and allowing firms to store and process data in either jurisdiction without localisation requirements. That last bit matters. Data localisation rules force companies to build servers in every country they operate in. Expensive. Clunky. This deal would scrap that.
Iswaran said the agreement would “build on the strong digital connectivity that already exists between our countries and set a benchmark for how open, rules-based digital trade should work.” He knows the template. Singapore has completed similar accords with Chile, New Zealand and Australia. It is negotiating with South Korea. The city-state has a playbook. The UK can adapt it.
Why now? Britain needs new markets. The EU was the big one. That door is still open for goods trade, but services — especially digital services — face new frictions. The Indo-Pacific is where the growth is. Singapore sits at the centre of that region’s digital economy. A deal with Singapore opens a path to others. The UK wants a firm foothold.
For Singapore, the logic is different but complementary. It already functions as a regional digital hub. A deal with the UK reinforces that role. It signals to other players: we set the rules here. Open, rules-based, transparent. That is the pitch.
The video call between Truss and Iswaran was the formal launch. But the groundwork was laid over years of trade diplomacy. Britain has been signalling its post-Brexit tilt toward the Indo-Pacific since before the divorce was final. This agreement is a plank in that strategy. Not the first. Not the last.
There is no guarantee the talks finish by year’s end. Trade negotiations are messy. Details get stuck. But both sides have reason to push hard. The UK needs wins. Singapore needs partners. A digital trade deal is a low-friction way to deliver both.
The clock is running. The first round of talks will test whether the template from Chile and Australia fits the UK. If it does, British tech companies get a clearer path into fast-growing markets. If it stalls, the post-Brexit strategy takes a hit. Either way, the 28 June video call set the clock ticking.
