Director-General KhondokerZoherul Islam, staff of the Department of Archives and National Library, distinguished guests,

I am very pleased and honoured to be here with you all today.

I would like to thank the Department of Archives and Library for organising this small ceremony for us to donate 60 books on Singapore to its collection.

Why have we chosen to have this book donation of 60 books? Well, Singapore is celebrating our 60^th Year of Independence on the 9^th August 2025 or what we call SG60. So I thought that it would be a nice idea if we could also celebrate SG60 with a few events this year in Bangladesh, starting with this modest book donation.

I also chose this book donation as our first event for SG60 in Dhaka as I felt that books and reading are important for the soul, important for education and help to inspire people. This quote from Victor Hugo describes the power of reading well. I quote: “To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.”  So, I hope that some of these books could perhaps create sparks amongst the people who read them.

Let me also say that in the course of my posting here in Bangladesh, I have learnt that Bangladesh has a strong reading and literary tradition. Every year in February, you have the Amar Eukushey Book Fair, a major literary event that celebrates the Bengali Language Movement and features a wide variety of local books. Likewise in Singapore we also have the Singapore Writers Festival.

I hope that by donating these 60 books we will be able to share Singapore’s literary tradition and culture. Among the 60 books are history books and biographies of our leaders. Some of them are biographies of our leaders like Mr Lee Kuan Yew, our first Prime Minister and Mr Goh Chok Tong and our first Foreign Minister Mr S Rajaratnam.

I have also included a number of fiction novels that showcases our multicultural and multi-religious make up. One of my personal favourites amongst these novels is “The Teenage Textbook” which was aptly characterised teenage sensibilities during my era!

Finally, I have included several books that document Singapore’s developmental journey and cover aspects which we feel might be useful reference points for Bangladesh. This includes stories of Singapore’s economic development, public policy, water management, foreign policy and “softer”things such as our conservation of nature, biodiversity and flora and fauna. Among these books, there is also one interesting book covering the cooking recipes of migrant workers in Singapore who come from Bangladesh. The book was conceived as an idea of how to celebrate and capture how Bangladeshis have contributed to Singapore’s vibrant cultural mix such as through food.

Let me conclude my remarks by saying that the Singapore High Commission in Dhaka intends to host a few more events throughout this year to celebrate Singapore’s 60 years of Independence. We will share more details on these SG60 event shortly, so stay tuned!

Mr. Mitchel Lee

Charge d’Affairesa.i.

Singapore High Commission