The UK has signed a free trade deal with Singapore covering trade worth £17.6bn, the international trade secretary, Liz Truss, has said. Alongside a photograph of herself with Singapore’s trade minister, Chan Chun Sing, Truss said on Twitter that it was the second-biggest such agreement Britain has signed in the Asia-Pacific region. The agreement largely replicates an existing EU-Singapore pact. It removes tariffs, gives both countries access to each other’s markets in services and cuts non-tariff barriers in electronics, cars and vehicle parts, pharmaceutical products, medical devices and renewable energy generation, the ministry said. Duties will be eliminated by November 2024, the same timeline as the agreement between the EU and Singapore, a former British colony that maintains close links with London. It comes as UK and EU negotiators begin a final push to salvage chances of a post-Brexit trade deal after Downing Street warned the gaps between the two sides remain “very large”. Boris Johnson and the European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, held crunch talks over dinner in Brussels on Wednesday aimed at breaking the deadlock, yet key differences prevail. Truss said the pact with Singapore “secures certainty” for business, would mean “deeper future ties in digital and services trade” and was “further proof we can succeed as an independent trading nation”. The UK and Canada reached a deal last month to continue trading under the same terms as the current EU agreement after the Brexit transition period ends. With Press Association and Agence France-Presse