SINGAPORE: China and Singapore will begin free trade talks in November, Singapore's finance minister said.
This reverses an earlier decision by the prime minister to wait until ASEAN and the communist nation complete negotiations on a trade deal, local media reported on Saturday.
"Whatever happens to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations-China Free Trade Agreement, we are going to launch negotiations in November," the local Straits Times newspaper quoted Lee Hsien Loong, Singapore's current finance minister as saying in Beijing.
He is expected to take the reins from Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong before the end of 2004.
The Southeast Asian trade grouping known as ASEAN, comprising Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Cambodia, Brunei, Laos, Vietnam and Myanmar, is currently negotiating a free trade agreement with China.
Lee, the son of the city-state's founder Lee Kuan Yew, met Premier Wen Jiabao and President Hu Jintao on Friday on a five-day visit to China.
"I'm optimistic that our relations would grow over the next few years as the Chinese economy expands,'' Lee said told the Straits Times, a newspaper with close government ties.