Australia and Singapore have signed a free trade agreement which officials say will be worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year to their economies.

Under the Singapore-Australia Free Trade Agreement, or Safta, all tariffs on goods and services between the two countries will be removed.

It's the first such deal negotiated by Australia in almost 20 years.

The Australian High Commissioner to Singapore said it demonstrated Australia's economic confidence in the region despite, as he put it, the current uncertainty in the security environment.

Correspondents say Singapore is close to signing a similar deal with the United States.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service