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Transcript of Special briefing by Secretary (East) on Prime Minister's visit to Singapore (September 05, 2024)

India - Ministry of External Affairs

September 05, 2024

Shri Randhir Jaiswal, Official Spokesperson: Good afternoon, friends. I welcome you to this special briefing by Secretary (East) in the Ministry of External Affairs, Mr. Jaideep Mazumdar, on the ongoing visit of Prime Minister of India to Singapore. We also have on stage with us, Mr. Ashish Sinha, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs, who has the charge of Singapore.

With that, I invite Secretary (East) to make his initial remarks on the visit. Sir, over to you.

Shri Jaideep Mazumdar, Secretary (East): Very good afternoon to you. As you are aware, Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi is paying an official visit to Singapore at the invitation of His Excellency Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, he is here in Singapore after a very successful visit to Brunei as well. This is Prime Minister's fifth visit to Singapore as Prime Minister, but all the four earlier visits were during his first term as Prime Minister, and the fact that his visit has come within his first 100 days as Prime Minister in his third term, and also so soon after Prime Minister Lawrence Wong has taken over as the Prime Minister of Singapore, holds a special significance as to what we can expect going forward in the next few years in our bilateral relationship.

Yesterday, Prime Minister was received warmly at the airport by Minister for Home Affairs and law, His Excellency, Mr. K. Shanmugam. And as we have seen in previous visits and also in Brunei, there was a very large and enthusiastic conglomeration of Indian diaspora who received him at the hotel. And in the evening yesterday, His Excellency Prime Minister, Lawrence Wong, in a very special gesture, hosted a private dinner for our Prime Minister. Today, he was accorded a ceremonial welcome at Parliament House, followed by official talks, and they discussed and reviewed cooperation in a very wide range of subjects, including trade and investment, defense and security, FinTech and digital economy, green corridors and sustainability, food security, advanced manufacturing, including semiconductors, connectivity, health and resilient supply chains. Four MOUs were exchanged, and these are in cooperation in semiconductor ecosystem, in digital technologies, in skill development and education and in healthcare.

The next stage in our bilateral relations has been set by the India-Singapore Ministerial Roundtable that met recently and which identified six pillars of our futuristic cooperation. And the above four MoUs address four of those six pillars. It is fair to say that with this, India and Singapore relations have been made future-ready, and accordingly, both Prime Ministers decided to elevate the relationship to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. To boost trade and investment, Prime Minister also announced the setting up of an Invest India office in Singapore, which will be a hand holding office for investors from Singapore in many diverse areas of interest identified in the six pillars above.

Apart from bilateral relations over talks spanning yesterday and today, both leaders exchanged views on regional and global issues, including India's Act East Policy and the centrality of ASEAN in this policy. Other engagements were, a call on President His Excellency, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, today afternoon, a lunch was hosted by Senior Minister and former Prime Minister Mr. Lee Hsien Loong. And there was also a meeting with Emeritus Senior Minister and former Prime Minister Mr. Goh Chok Tong. Over their long and distinguished careers, all three leaders have contributed enormously to what is the India-Singapore bilateral relations today.

Prime Minister also visited AEM, which is a leading Singapore company in the semiconductor space and in electronics. There, he was briefed about AEM's role in global semiconductor value chain, its operations and plans for India, and given our efforts to develop our own semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem and to match Singapore's strengths in this area. There were a number of other senior company leaders who were present, as well as those involved in skilling and skill upgradation in this sector. At the facility, the two Prime Ministers also interacted with a group of interns, both from India and Singapore, who had undergone skill training as part of bilateral programs. The Indian interns were from the Odisha World Skill Center, and the Singaporean students were receiving skilling exposure in India under the India Ready Program. Prime Minister also invited the semiconductor related CEOs present today to the SEMICON India Exhibition and Conference, which is being held from 11th to 13th of September.

After this press conference, Prime Minister will also be meeting a galaxy of CEOs of different leading Singaporean companies, and these include such companies as Temasek, GIC, DBS, Singapore Airlines and at least 15 other such companies. They all have substantial investments in India and are looking to scale up their presence.Looking at the fast unfolding opportunities in India, this is an opportune time, we believe, for these CEOs to have a first-hand understanding from India's Prime Minister, as to what is being offered by India; its political stability, its policy predictability and the freshly oriented, reform oriented economic agenda.

In terms of people-to-people contact, both sides have discussed over this two days, things like increasing the number of flight connections between the two countries. And also, the Prime Minister has announced that the first ever Thiruvalluvar Center in the world will be set up in Singapore.

That is what I have for you in terms of description of the visit and its content. And if you have any questions, I will be happy to try and address them. Thank you.

Shri Randhir Jaiswal, Official Spokesperson: Okay, yeah, first there. And ladies and gentlemen, please, I would like to remind you that this particular press conference is on the bilateral visit of our Prime Minister to Singapore, so please keep your questions focused on the visit.

Karishma Vaswani: Sure. Thank you. My name is Karishma Vaswani. I'm from Bloomberg Opinion. I'd like to know how much China was discussed in the meetings between the Prime Ministers with regards to furthering relations between India and ASEAN.

Himanshu Verma: Hi, my name is Himanshu Verma. I'm from Connected to India. Sir Singapore-India have elevated the bilateral ties to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. What does this mean for the partnership, and what does this mean for the Indian diaspora, especially living in Singapore?

Sharmin: Hi, good afternoon. I'm Sharmin from CNBC. Do you think Singapore can play a role in improving strained relations between China and India, given that Singapore has good relations with both countries?

Speaker: How this visit of PM Modi here will expand our manufacturing and other development sectors?

Shri Jaideep Mazumdar, Secretary (East): Thank you for those questions. I must say that the discussions between the leadership of Singapore and our Prime Minister focused on how India and ASEAN and with Singapore, as one of our most important partners in ASEAN, can play a role in making this an Asian Century. And there is so much that we have in common. We are two of the fastest growing regions in the world. We have huge populations between us. We have young populations, which is also so important. And for both of us, peace is very important for us to grow and for us to grow together; and free and open commerce, free sea lines of communication and overflight; these are issues that are important for both us and for Singapore, and these are some of the areas which both sides feel that are important for maintaining the growth that we see in each other's countries, and the importance these play in making us leap forward to the next stage in our relations between India and ASEAN. So in that respect, of course, all issues that are important; all global issues, all regional issues that can either help or hinder in this, were also discussed.

The Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. We have very multi-dimensional relationship, multi-dimensional partnership. We have very strong relations in the defense side as well, where we do joint exercises together. We have very frequent exchanges between our military establishments, between our navies, our air forces. Our leaderships of all three services interact very frequently. We have ship visits. We exchange domain awareness information. We would like to also cooperate further in maritime domain awareness. So this is one area where we cooperate very closely. And the other, of course, is in all the areas of economy, trade and investment, Singapore is our biggest foreign investor. Since 2000, Singapore has invested nearly $160 billion in India. Last year, Singapore was the biggest foreign investor in India. We are going into the next stage of sustainable technologies, renewable energy, advanced manufacturing, such as semiconductors, and also in health and in skilling. So these are all areas where we have great complementarities. We complement each other, and we need each other in order to develop further. So I would say the question was, how it affects the diaspora, I think the diaspora is also a great bridge between us, and therefore, you see it in the business environment here. You see it in the leadership here. You see the warmth that is there across the leadership. So I would say that Singapore has also been a safe, secure place for Indians and people of Indian origin to grow and prosper. So the more we get closer together, I think it will only benefit them.

I'm sorry, what was the question on the manufacturing sector?

Speaker: Manufacturing sector is specially focused on semiconductor, as we signed MoU on semiconductor.

Shri Jaideep Mazumdar, Secretary (East): Right? Yes, so how it will benefit India? Is that your question? Alright. So, as you know, Singapore has a long history of manufacturing in the semiconductor space, whether it is in terms of the actual production of wafers or testing or designing and in all these areas, I think we, in India, have put a particular focus on developing our capabilities at a very rapid pace. And Singapore is also looking to see, you know, their value chains to make them more resilient. They are looking for places where they want to expand, and India is presenting itself as a natural destination for that. So across this entire spectrum of the semiconductor ecosystem, we find great convergences with Singapore, and I think you will see a very rapid growth in our joint efforts in this direction.

Shri Randhir Jaiswal, Official Spokesperson: Thank you. We have a question there?

Nomita Dhar: Hi I am Nomita from Sun Media. Mine is a follow up question for semiconductor industry. Have you decided which state if this was to go through, which state this fab is going to be and how soon do you think this is going to happen? Thank you.

Speaker: Hi, I have two questions. One, about the... you guys mentioned the increased number of flights, what about easing of visa restrictions between Singapore and India? That's my first one. And the second one would be relating to the Thiruvalluvar Center that you have just announced. May I know which the organizations or who is partnering in this and how... what's the timeline like for this project? Thanks.

Gurdeep Singh: Good evening. Gurdeep Singh from PTI. This new level of partnership and where is CECA standing within that, you see. On semiconductors, manufacturing semiconductors is one thing, but putting it into another component, or larger components, is another manufacturing process, and which most of the time Singapore depends on exporting chips to China. How are you going to put the end products of this semiconductor in the final product for the global market?

Speaker: Sir I have semiconductor related question. If I may ask that question also. Thank you. So if you look at Singapore, despite its size, we've got in design, we've got media tech, real tech, in assembly packing, and we've got ASC group, all these different semiconductor companies are already doing really well. So what is the lesson which India has learned from Singapore's prowess in the semiconductor sector? And if you could also elaborate some specific points that how will things move on from here? Can I ask a question Invest India also, just a related question again, on you were talking about setting up an office of Invest India. Who would be heading that? Would that be a bureaucratic position or will that be a management position? Could you expand on that?

Shri Jaideep Mazumdar, Secretary (East): Okay. All right, which state? As you know, the government has recently announced 12 cities which will be industrial cities, and although it is specifically, none of them is targeted for the semiconductor industry itself. But at the moment, you know, there have been Singaporean teams who have gone to four of those sites to evaluate those sites. So that gives you an idea of how attractive it is for them, and also how quick of the block they are, that they have already gone and surveyed these places. So none of them have actually been identified as the place that they will start their new operations in. But as you know already, Gujarat has a semiconductor facility coming up. So has a SAM. So there will be other modes as well.

Now regarding visa restrictions. Of course, issues affecting professionals working in Singapore is something that we discuss with the Singaporean side, and they are also very receptive, and they have expressed their willingness to look at how to address some of the issues, whether it is about recognition of institutions or in terms of dependence and things like that to make things easier. So the Government of Singapore is keen to address any issues that professionals from India have here.

Regarding the Thiruvalluvar Center. I don't have a timeline, but I can tell you that the government is very keen to do it at the earliest.

CECA. So it's a measure of the success of CECA that we are here today, you know, with Singapore being the largest trading partner in ASEAN, the sixth largest in the world, the largest foreign investor into India. So I would say that CECA has been a great success for both sides.

As far as what to do with the chips when they are built, if you build, they will come. That is the saying. So I'm sure we will have buyers for our chips, if you don't consume them all ourselves, given our appetite for it. Lessons for India from the Singapore ecosystem of semiconductors; I think two things stand out. One is skilling and the importance that Singapore has given to skilling, and we are very, very keen to pick up on that and to learn skilling from Singapore. And the other is that for any semiconductor industry to come up, it's very important to have an ecosystem, and Singapore has that ecosystem, which has been built up over the years, and we would like to replicate that.

Invest India, bureaucratic or management person. Do I notice degree of skepticism about bureaucrats? But okay, alright, I'll take it. So it will be. You know, Invest India is a very, very, very professional organization, and it has had enormous success in hand holding so many big players from all over the world in India, and you know, smaller players, niche companies, SMEs, who might find India a daunting place, you know, to go there, but who possess great technologies that we can benefit from; they would really benefit from an Invest India office in Singapore. Thank you.

Shri Randhir Jaiswal, Official Spokesperson: So one last question there.

Karishma Vaswani: Hi. Thank you so much for letting me ask this. So this is a follow up to my China question. It was a clarification on something that you said with regards to maritime cooperation. How likely are, you know, sort of joint activities between Singapore and India in places like the South China Sea, were those things sort of discussed and is India considering helping out members of the Quad with regards to the increasing Chinese aggressiveness in the South China Sea. And then a question about Amaravati, whether Singapore has expressed interest on if Mr. Modi asked them to return to the project at Mr. Naidu's behest. Thank you.

Shri Jaideep Mazumdar, Secretary (East): So let me just say that firstly, as I said before, peace, stability and open commerce are important things for both India and Singapore, and therefore these subjects do come up in our discussions amongst our leaders. So naturally these would have been discussed. I will not go into greater specifics than that. Let me leave it at that. These are important issues for both Singapore and India, and they are very important for the region, we believe, and as I said before, for an Asian Century, I think the growth of ASEAN, the countries of the ASEAN, and India's partnership with ASEAN is very important. And we believe that so. And that is basically what Prime Minister Sri Narendra Modi ji's vision is for the region. And that is why he enunciated his 'Act East' Policy and his vision for the Indo-Pacific Oceans initiative. And that is why, as you see, in the first 100 days of his office, he has invited both the Prime Ministers of Vietnam and Malaysia to India. Our President has gone to Timor-Leste, to Fiji and to New Zealand. And Prime Minister himself has visited Brunei and Singapore. So this will give you an idea of the importance that we place in the region.

Yes, the Amaravati question. I don't believe it was discussed. It did not come up.

Speaker: Sorry, air travel question, I asked earlier? Regarding whether Singapore and India would move towards a visa free travel.

Shri Jaideep Mazumdar, Secretary (East): I can't say that we discussed visa free travel. What was discussed was how to make it easier for people to travel, and how to make connectivity between us easier, but not Visa free itself.

Shri Randhir Jaiswal, Official Spokesperson: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your participation in this special briefing. Thank you, Sir for taking your time. Please do follow the business event which is just going to happen shortly.