Kate Middleton and Prince William to Tour Asia Pacific

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are due to arrive in Singapore as part of their nine-day tour of Asia Pacific nations to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee on behalf of the Queen.

"The duke and duchess will use the tour to pay tribute - through what they do and say and who they meet - to the Queen's lifetime and dedication to the mix of peoples and cultures that make up all of Her Majesty's realms and the Commonwealth," Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, principal private secretary of the duke and duchess, told AFP.

Apart from Singapore, Prince William and Kate Middleton will be visiting Malaysia, the Solomon Islands and Tuvalu.

The duke and duchess will take part in a number of events that include visits to the Singapore Botanic gardens, Malaysian Borneo rainforests and the Solomon Islands. They will be enjoying a palace banquet in Malaysia, trekking in the jungles of Sabah and taking in the sights of wild Borean orang-utans.

"The tour will comprise a mixture of formal and informal moments which reflect these aims and the duke and duchess's characters and interests."

At the Singapore Botanic Gardens, they will be shown the "Diana" orchid named after the Princess of Wales shortly before her death.

"It was named shortly before the Princess of Wales died and the intention was for the Princess to see it at some point."

William and Kate will also have orchids named after them at the ceremony which will be part of over 1,000 species of orchids in the garden.

During her tour of Kuala Lumpur, Catherine will make her first overseas speech. She made her first speech at the opening of the East Anglia's Children Hospices' Ipswich hospice, for which she is a patron.

"We're extremely excited. Both of us have never been anywhere near there. William's been practising his dance moves," Middleton told the governor general of the Solomon Islands, Sir Frank Kabui, at a reception in London in June.