One after another, its top three leaders and the president have visited the area recently in an unprecedented effort to cement economic and social ties with the oil-rich region.

There are compelling reasons for the new outreach.

During the past decade, oil-rich Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members have collectively emerged like a new rising star in global reckonings.

While China and India remain Singapore’s staunch partners, the markets have become too competitive and crowded, while South-East Asia, Singapore’s traditional partner, has generally stagnated.

The fast-developing Middle East – Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region – with its oil liquidity, a growing educated middle-class and some of the world’s biggest development projects, offers vast potential.

“They see us as an interesting model and want us to do here some of the thing’s we’ve done in Singapore,” said PM Lee Hsien Loong after talks with leaders in Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

This could lead to Singapore and the GCC countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE) signing free trade agreements. Talks had been going on since January last year.

Singapore schools may also take up Arabic as a third foreign language alongside French, German and Japanese.

It is not a one-way traffic. Leaders and investors from the region have also been visiting Singapore in recent years and investing hundreds of millions in Singapore’s luxury properties.

The road to the Middle East had been smoothened by numerous official visits during the past year, including cultural, training and educational ties.

Two weeks ago, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew visited Kuwait and United Arab Emirates (and France), while President S.R. Nathan visited Egypt and Jordan, the first visit by a Singapore head of state to the Middle East.

(In March, MM Lee and Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong visited Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Dubai and Morocco.)

Until recently, when the Singapore media began featuring the Gulf region’s vast development, Singaporeans knew very little about the Middle East except that it was hot, rich in oil and a very violent place.

Then ignorance turned to surprise and admiration when they learned how “desert” tracts like Abu Dhabi and Dubai were transformed in a short period into glittering modern resorts beyond their imagination.

Dubai has outbid Singapore in buying British and US ports and is posing a challenge to its role as a global investor.

Today, Singapore’s foreign relations still follow trade and commerce as it did in olden times but in the Middle East, geopolitics also figures predominantly.

The priority is oil, a supply that high-tech Singapore needs without interruption, and the region has lots of it.

With the expected withdrawal of the US from Iraq and the rise of militant Islam in the region, Singapore (which remains a Jemaah Islamiah target) sees a need to court the friendship and help of moderate Arab states.

“To beat terrorism, it is (important) we cultivate the moderate branch of Islam,” said Kuan Yew.

In recent years, the republic – once a staunch ally of Israel – appeared to have moved towards a more neutral stand in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In a visit to Ramallah in June, Goh said Singapore recognised the stake the Palestinians had in the Middle East and called for a balanced and principled approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“I’ve said this publicly. And I’ve also told President George Bush, that in the handling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the West, in particular the US, must not come across as being in favour of only one side,” he said.

This preoccupation has, however, not resulted in the dilution of Singapore’s attention in China, India, or Malaysia and Indonesia in South-East Asia, which remain pillars of trade.

This explains Singapore’s enthusiastic response to Malaysia’s call for the two countries to work as partners, rather than competitors, to face the threat of globalisation.

It came from Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, who said that China and India were “new engines of growth” as well as strong competitors.

He suggested that Malaysian and Singapore companies join hands to defeat the rivalry.

“We have to raise our political will to work together where we can and accommodate each other in areas where we cannot,” he said.

It was the sort of message that Singaporeans liked to hear to pull the region, including Indonesia and Thailand, out of economic lethargy.

For Singaporean investors and professionals seeking jobs abroad, South-East Asia is closer and enjoys shared history compared with, for example, the Middle East.

It explains why the Republic is pushing for a faster rate of Asean economic integration and the creation of a common market by 2015, instead of 2020.

But for men-in-the-street here, globalisation is no longer just a technical term.

Singapore has produced a new skilled generation of tertiary-educated youths, the number of which exceeds what the local market can absorb.

The proportion of Singaporean managers and professionals leaving to seek opportunities in China, India and other newly emerging economies is staggering considering its small size. The Middle East is teeming with jobs and employers are seeking Singaporeans to fill them, particularly in construction, hotels, airlines, banks and property management.

“Desert? I don’t know. I think it’s an oasis for retrenched Singaporeans,” said a civil engineer who had just packed his bags to go there.

o Seah Chiang Nee is a veteran journalist and editor of the information website littlespeck.com

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