STB has given grants to leisure events since 1998, with ‘thorough assessment’ of benefits, says Alvin Tan

Taylor Swift held the first of six shows here on Mar 2, with over 300,000 tickets sold.

PHOTO: TAS RIGHTS MANAGEMENT

SINGAPORE struck a deal with American pop superstar Taylor Swift to make the Republic her only South-east Asian stop on her world tour, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Tuesday (Mar 5) as he defended the government’s decision to award a grant to make this possible.

“Our agencies negotiated an arrangement with her to come to Singapore and perform, and to make Singapore her only stop in South-east Asia,” said Lee at a joint press conference in Melbourne alongside his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese.

“A deal was reached. And so it has turned out to be a very successful arrangement. I don’t see that as being unfriendly. Sometimes one country makes a deal, sometimes another …