By Steve Clark | The Brownsville Herald
Ashok Kumar Mirpuri, the Republic of Singapore’s ambassador to the United States, was in town over the weekend at the invitation of Rep. Filemon Vela, who cited the visit as an example of the kind of international relationship-building that’s vital for Brownsville and the region.
Mirpuri had been invited to a charity golf tournament held each year by offshore rig manufacturer/refurbisher Keppel AmFELS, but a scheduling glitch put him in Brownsville the following week.
Singapore-based Keppel Offshore & Marine is the parent company of Keppel AmFELS, located at the Port of Brownsville. Vela was invited to the Singapore U.S. Embassy in Washington almost three months ago as a guest speaker to help celebrate the 48th anniversary of the country’s independence from Malaysia.
Vela said that in an earlier meeting with Mirpuri in Washington D.C., he’d told him about Keppel AmFELS and invited the ambassador to tour the facility, which he did on Saturday.
The day before, Mirpuri was honored with a reception at the Alonzo Building downtown. On Sunday, it was breakfast at the Toddle Inn then back to Washington D.C. for the ambassador.
Vela, interviewed on Monday after Mirpuri’s visit, said the ambassador was “incredibly impressed with the area.”
“He thought the people were warm, he loved the weather and thought the food was great,” Vela said.
Besides that, it was an opportunity to show an official government representative from Singa-pore, one of the world’s major financial centers, that South Texas doesn’t stop at San Antonio.
“When you’re in Washington and you meet members of Congress from around the country or representatives from other countries, they think of Texas and they think of Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin.
“I do what I can to remind them that there’s a another significant part of Texas and that we’re part of that. That’s part of the reason that I extended the invitation. He loved the visit. You just never know what’s going to happen with these sorts of relationships.”
Mirpuri became Singapore’s ambassador to the United States in 2012. Before that he was ambassador to Indonesia from 2006 to 2012.
Mayor Tony Martinez said the visit “went terrifically.”
“I’ll be honest: One of the things that I think that we need to do a lot more of ... is trying to reach out to people like the ambassador,” he said. “You’ve got (Keppel AmFELS) out there at the port, and they’ve been there for over 20 years. It’s only appropriate that we reach out to them and tell them how grateful we are.”
He noted that Friday’s reception was attended by local economic development representatives, public school and higher education officials, and elected officials as well as senior directors of selected city departments.
“It was very well attended,” Martinez said. “He was appreciative of the outpouring of the community coming out and sharing a little bit of time.”
