The sixth China-Singapore Legal and Judicial Roundtable closed on the afternoon of Feb 7, with completion of all items on the agenda. Zhou Qiang, chief justice of China, and Sundaresh Menon, chief justice of Singapore, attended and addressed the closing session.

Zhou, also president of the Supreme People's Court (SPC) of China, extended his congratulations on the success of the event and his appreciation to the Supreme Court of Singapore for their efforts in preparing for the event. He said that this was an important meeting between the top courts of the two countries, which had the goal of deepening bilateral relations and enhancing high-quality cooperation. The two sides carried out in-depth communication and experience sharing with the common goal of increasing friendship and cooperation, reached extensive consensuses, further solidified the roundtable mechanism and injected strong impetus into the next phase of bilateral judicial cooperation, he noted.

He said that the roundtable achieved fruitful pragmatic results in a candid atmosphere, writing a new chapter in the China-Singapore judicial cooperation. The judicial practices of both courts were shared, multiple consensuses were reached, and new content was added to the in-depth bilateral cooperation at the event, Zhou said. He pledged that China's SPC is ready to work with the Supreme Court of Singapore to continue to adopt an open, inclusive, equal and pragmatic approach in their judicial services in order to facilitate bilateral cooperation in various fields, including digitalization and green development, and will jointly contribute to the high-quality development of the Belt and Road.

Menon said that this event significantly increased the friendship and mutual trust between the judicial organs of the two countries, and jointly set out a roadmap for further cooperation in the future. He raised hope of further advancing judicial cooperation, fully tapping the existing cooperation systems and mechanisms for stronger information exchanges on legal and judicial practices, innovating new cooperative procedures and expanding dialogue and communication through joint case study lectures and judge training. He also expressed his anticipation of new yields resulting from bilateral cooperation between the top courts of the two countries, and the development of judicial undertakings in both countries.