New Delhi [India], August 29 (ANI): Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong will be on a three-day visit to India from September 2 with a slew of MoUs slated to be signed between the two countries during his visit, sources said.
The visit will be a high point in the 60th year of diplomatic ties between India and Singapore, sources said, adding that MoUs are expected to focus on skill development, finance and digital revolution, civil aviation, space collaboration and shipping.
During the visit, the Singapore PM will have a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Lawrence Wong’s visit to India follows Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Singapore last year in September 2024, during which the two leaders reviewed and expressed satisfaction with the progress in the bilateral relationship, which now encompasses several areas, including security, technology, education, people-to-people ties, and cultural links. The two countries had agreed to elevate the bilateral relations to ‘Comprehensive Strategic Partnership’.
Earlier this month, the third India-Singapore Ministerial Roundtable was held New Delhi, where Ministers reviewed the progress of various bilateral cooperation initiatives under the six pillars of ISMR, including Advanced Manufacturing, Connectivity, Digitalisation, Healthcare and Medicine, Skill Development and Sustainability. They deliberated on ways to further deepen bilateral cooperation and identified a number of specific initiatives to pursue.
A joint statement on the comprehensive strategic partnership is likely to be issued during the Singapore PM’s India visit and is expected to set a roadmap for cooperation in the coming years in diverse areas including trade, skill training, digitalisation, sustainability, connectivity, health care and medicine, defence and security and cultural exchange, the sources said.
Inauguration of the second phase of PSA’s (Port of Singapore Authority) project in Navi Mumbai is likely to take place during Singapore PM’s visit, they said.
Singapore is India’s largest trading partner in ASEAN. It is the leading source of FDI, amongst the largest source of external commercial borrowings and Foriegn portfolio investments. From 2014 to 2024, the total accumulated investments that Singapore has made in India are approximately 159 billion US dollars, and by the end of this year, they are expected to reach around 175 billion dollars.
There has been an acceleration of Singapore investments in India in recent years.
India and Singapore are also looking for bright spots as part of a comprehensive strategic partnership, which includes the export of green energy from India via Singapore, the sources said. Data storage, small module reactors, space tech, quantum tech, and aircraft repairs are other areas of bilateral cooperation.
There could be a discussion concerning the establishment of an MRO hub in Bengaluru with investments from Singapore, they said.
ISRO has launched several Singaporean satellites. These include Singapore’s first indigenous-built microsatellite in 2011, two more in 2014, six in 2015, and nine in 2023.
There is active collaboration between India and Singapore to establish skill development centres in various sectors.
Skill Centre projects with public and private support have been completed at six places (Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Rajasthan (Udaipur), Assam (Guwahati), Odisha (Bhubaneshwar) and Telangana (Hyderabad)), and two projects (Madhya Pradesh (Bhopal) and Gujarat (Gandhinagar)) are ongoing.
During the Prime Minister’s visit in September 2024, both sides exchanged an MoU on Cooperation in Education and Skill Development.
Commercial and technical arrangements have also been worked out for the acceptance of the RuPay card in Singapore. UPI-Paynow Linkage is another landmark development in the area of cross-border Fintech. Singapore is the first nation with which India has begun this cross-border Person-to-Person (P2P) payment facility.
Defence cooperation between India and Singapore is pursued under the aegis of the Defence Cooperation Agreement of 2003, which was renewed under the Enhanced Agreement for Defence Cooperation in 2015. Both sides have signed several domain-specific agreements.
There are bilateral exercises involving all three services (Army – Exercise Agni Warrior, Navy – Exercise SIMBEX and Air Force – Joint Military Training). The 32nd edition of SIMBEX was held in Singapore in July-August 2025.
The fourth edition of the India-Singapore Joint Military Exercise, Exercise Bold Kurukshetra, concluded earlier this month. (ANI)
