Sixth Committee

STATEMENT BY AMBASSADOR VANU GOPALA MENON, PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF SINGAPORE TO THE UNITED NATIONS AT THE CEREMONY TO MARK THE RATIFICATION BY SINGAPORE OF THE UN CONVENTION ON THE USE OF ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS IN INTERNATIONAL CONTRACTS, NEW YORK, 7 JULY 2010

Singapore recognises the importance of electronic commerce and the use of electronic communications in the development of world trade. As such, Singapore has been among those States which have been at the forefront of implementing laws relating to electronic commerce and ICT. It was the first to implement the UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Commerce in 1998. Given the developments in ICT since then, it was only appropriate that UNCITRAL took upon itself the task of formulating the Convention on the Use of Electronic Communications in International Contracts, now commonly referred to as the "UN Electronic Communications Convention". Singapore was privileged to play a leading role in the development of this important Convention which updates the existing law on the use of electronic communications, especially in trading relations. Singapore was also among the first States to sign this Convention.

Subsequent to the adoption of this Convention by the United Nations, Singapore completed an extensive review of its laws pertaining to electronic transactions with a view, among other things, to adopting this Convention. This resulted in our new Electronic Transactions Act which came into force on 1 July 2010.

I am pleased that Singapore is now among the first in the world to ratify the Convention. The Convention sets a new global standard for national electronic commerce legislation and will remove barriers to cross-border electronic commerce arising from disharmony in national electronic commerce legislation. We hope to see more States adopting the Convention so as to achieve harmonisation of electronic commerce legislation amongst countries.

. . . . .