Eduardo González
The Council of Ministers appointed Álvaro de la Riva as Spain’s ambassador to Singapore on Tuesday, January 13. This post had been vacant since December 2, following the appointment of its previous holder, Mercedes Alonso Frayle, as ambassador to Cyprus.
Born in San Sebastián in 1960, with a degree in Economics and International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a member of the Diplomatic Corps since 1990, Álvaro de la Riva Guzmán de Frutos has professional experience in the media.
Abroad, he headed the Economic and Commercial Offices of the Spanish Embassies in Colombia and Algeria, served as an advisor in the Cabinet of the Secretary of State for International Cooperation and Ibero-America, as counselor at the Spanish Embassy in Mexico, as deputy head of mission at the Spanish Embassies in Vietnam and Greece between 2007 and 2011, as Spanish ambassador to Estonia from 2011 to 2014, as cultural advisor at the Spanish Embassy in Russia between 2015 and 2019, and as Spanish consul general in Istanbul since April 2019.
Spain and Singapore established diplomatic relations on April 26, 1968. The Spanish Embassy in Singapore has been a resident embassy since 2003. Previously, diplomatic relations were handled by the Embassy in Jakarta.
Singapore does not have an embassy in Madrid. Until 2007, Singapore covered Spain from its embassy in Paris, but that year it decided to appoint an “ambassador to Spain based in Singapore,” who travels to Spain occasionally. Bilateral relations focus primarily on economic, trade, and investment matters.