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Transcript of Special briefing by Secretary (East) on State visit of the President of Singapore to India (January 17, 2025)

India - Ministry of External Affairs

January 17, 2025

Shri Randhir Jaiswal, Official Spokesperson: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I welcome you to a special briefing on the ongoing State visit of the President of Singapore. We have with us Secretary East, Shri Jaideep Mazumdar to brief us on this State visit. We are also joined by Shri Ashish Sinha, who is Joint Secretary looking after South, looking after Singapore and other countries in Southeast Asia. With that, I invite Secretary Sir to make his remarks. Sir, over to you.

Shri Jaideep Mazumdar, Secretary (East): Thank you, Randhir and good afternoon to you all. As you all know, the President of Singapore, His Excellency Shri Tharman Shanmugaratnam is on a four-day visit, State visit to India. This is his first State visit to India after being elected the President of Singapore in September 2023. He is of course no stranger to India. In fact, he knows India very well. He takes great interest in the Indo-Singapore relationship as well as in India's economic development. He has had very close relations with our leadership.

If you recall, in 2016, Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi had invited him to deliver the inaugural address, NITI Aayog speech on transforming India, where the entire Cabinet and the Senior Bureaucracy of India was present. Over the years, he has been to India many times. In a way, this was a culmination of his association with India and that too on the 60th year of our diplomatic relations. The President is accompanied by his spouse, Mrs. Jane Ittogi , as well as two Ministers and three Members of Parliament and also Senior Officials and a Business Delegation.

As I said, this is the State visit to commemorate 60 years of our diplomatic relations. It was in 1965 that Singapore was born as an independent nation and India was one of the first countries to have recognized Singapore, a fact that is acknowledged very much by the Singaporean leadership.

During this visit, the President was accorded a ceremonial welcome at Rashtrapati Bhavan by the President of India, as well as the Prime Minister and members of the Cabinet were present and senior officials. He then proceeded to lay a wreath at the samadhi of Mahatma Gandhi. Then External Affairs Minister, Dr. S. Jaishankar called on His Excellency.

Yesterday, there was also a series of meetings that he had with several Ministers, as many as five Cabinet Ministers called on him, Ministers in different fields, Minister for IT, Minister for Roads and Highways, Finance Minister, Minister for Skill Development and others, and of course Minister for Commerce and Industry.

This was followed in the evening by talks between the President, Shrimati Droupadi Murmu and the visiting President, where they covered a wide swath of bilateral areas of interest and cooperation and a meeting with the Prime Minister where they discussed India's development and Singapore's development and how India and ASEAN countries provide the growth engine for Asia and in many respects for the world and how our bilateral cooperation with countries of ASEAN can really be a growth engine for the world.

A banquet was hosted by Her Excellency Shrimati Droupadi Murmu, the Honorable President of India. Today, the President and his delegation are travelling to Odisha. This is a significant visit. He is taking with him a large and senior business delegation. He had expressed his interest to travel to the eastern part of India during Prime Minister's visit to Singapore in September last year and the Prime Minister had encouraged him to do so. It fits in with our Prime Minister's 'Purvodaya' thrust which is the development of the eastern region and a number of MOUs are expected to be signed during the visit of the President of Singapore to Odisha. These are in areas of green hydrogen, green shipping, industrial park, petrochemical complexes and overall in skill development especially in the semiconductor sphere and in other skill development areas. So this will be a visit to Odisha which is very keenly awaited by the Odisha Government. The Chief Minister of Odisha will also be hosting a banquet in his honor.

The Governor will also be having a meeting with the President and there will be other business meetings as well. The President will also go to Konark to visit the Sun Temple as well as an artist's village.

So all in all, this is a fitting visit to commemorate 60 years of our diplomatic relations and on this occasion both the President of India and the President of Singapore jointly released a logo to commemorate the year-long observance of this important anniversary.

The visit takes off from where Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi's visit built on in September last year when we upgraded our relations with Singapore to that of a comprehensive strategic partnership and the various areas of emphasis and the various areas of cooperation that were identified during that time are also going to find their reflection during this visit.

At that time, if you recall, the India-Singapore Ministerial Roundtable had identified some areas of emphasis whether it is in semiconductors, the digital economy, in health and skill development, semiconductor ecosystem development which were prioritized by those roundtables, both the first and the second and the results of this particular visit will see the actualization of those.

So I will stop here and if you have any questions, I would be happy to respond to them.

Manash Pratim Bhuyan, PTI: Sir this is Manash Pratim Bhuyan from PTI, Press Trust of India. Yesterday in his media remarks, the Singaporean President talked about the possibility of establishing an energy corridor between India and Singapore. And he also talked about a corridor between Gift City in Gujarat and Singapore for safe data transfer between the two sides. So would you like to elaborate on that?

Shri Jaideep Mazumdar, Secretary (East): So there is already some work going on in terms of the energy corridor, which is basically a green energy corridor, a green hydrogen corridor between India and Singapore. Along the eastern part of India, one in from Tuticorin and the other that is being identified is from Paradeep in Odisha. So you will see an agreement also, an MOU also being signed during this particular visit on that.

The data corridor is also an important area between Gujarat, Gift City and Singapore, which is also being discussed. No MOUs during this visit on that, but this is also an important area which bilaterally we are discussing.

Sidhant Sibal: Sidhant from WION, Sir, Yesterday it said that the statement at Rastrapati Bhavan, the Singaporean President also talked about MROs and cooperation on that front. So, if you can talk about how India and Singapore are working together and how important it can be when it comes to our defense needs?

Shri Jaideep Mazumdar, Secretary (East): So maintenance, repair and overhaul especially of aircraft is something that is gaining great importance for us because as you know we have nearly 1,500 aircraft on order by different airlines, some of the biggest orders in the world for aircraft anywhere. And over the years we will see that there is not only tremendous amount of employment that can be generated and value addition made, but India could really become a hub for MRO for others as well. Also Singapore is itself a very strong MRO center, but they do have their own limitations in terms of area, in land area, in terms of manpower, resources. So they too are looking to work with us and we are looking to work with them. As President Shanmugaratnam himself said, two of the foremost MRO players in the world today are based in Singapore and they would like to partner with us in developing our MRO sector. So that is certainly a very important area in which we wish to cooperate with Singapore.

Niraj, News18 India: Sir, semiconductor ke baare mei aapne jikr kiya, usmei kis tarah ka samjhauta hoga aur kya scope Singapore mei hum log dekhte hain ya Singapore Bharat mei dekhta hain?

[Question in Hindi: Approximate translation] Sir, you mentioned semiconductors; what kind of agreement will be made in this regard, and what scope does Singapore see in India, or does India see in Singapore?

Shri Jaideep Mazumdar, Secretary (East): Toh jaise aap jante hain Pradhanmantri ji jab gaye the Singapore daure par, September 2024 mei, toh us samay ek semiconductor Complex visit kiya tha, AEM Semiconductor complex mei, aur wahan Singapore ke Pradhanmantri bhi unke sath gaye the. Iska ek signal banta hain ki Singapore ka semiconductor industry India ko ek partner ke hisab se dekhte hain. Aur hum bhi hamara jo semiconductor ecosystem hain woh ek bahot complex ecosystem hota hain, toh kafi usmei develop karne ke liye hamari ieecha hain, toh Singapore ek appropriate partner banta hain and Singapore is also interested in working with us in that. So ek toh woh hain, aur dusra hain skill development. Toh is area mei aap dekhenge kuch samjhautein honge Odisha mei iske bare mei on skill development in the semiconductor area. So these are some of the important areas in semiconductor industry which we are looking to cooperate with Singapore.

[Answer in Hindi: Approximate translation] As you know, when the Prime Minister visited Singapore in September 2024, he visited the AEM Semiconductor Complex, accompanied by Singapore's Prime Minister. This signals that Singapore's semiconductor industry views India as a potential partner. Similarly, we also aspire to develop our semiconductor ecosystem, which is quite complex, and Singapore is an appropriate partner for this. Singapore is also interested in collaborating with us on this.

One aspect of this partnership is skill development. In this area, you will see some agreements being made, particularly in Odisha, focusing on skill development in the semiconductor sector.

Ayanangsha Maitra: Sir, Tamil Nadu's Chief Minister Stalin visited Singapore with a delegation and they signed couple of MoUs. Is there something on the diaspora and Tamil Nadu front, please?

Shri Jaideep Mazumdar, Secretary (East): On that, on the diaspora front, I am afraid I can't speak on behalf of the Tamil Nadu Government what their objectives are., if you see, a number of States have been reaching out to Singapore and Singapore has also been very forthcoming. There is Tamil Nadu of course. We will soon have a delegation from Assam Government as well, Rajasthan Government before their business event had also sent a delegation and Telangana also of course. So a number of States are partnering with Singapore in different areas. So this is also something that we encourage for States to do.

Jugal Purohit, BBC: Sir this is Jugal from BBC. Sir since you mentioned that the discussion between India and Singapore also covered the ASEAN nations as a whole, just wanted to understand if there was any discussion around the circumstances of the situation in Myanmar and whether India and Singapore have some kind of a common understanding on how to deal with the circumstances there.

Shri Jaideep Mazumdar, Secretary (East): As you know, we work very closely with ASEAN countries in our general neighborhood and of course since Myanmar is both India's neighbor and also an ASEAN member and also a member of BIMSTEC, so it is of particular significance and importance for us. So it is natural that we do discuss such countries, such issues and apart from Myanmar also there were other issues that were also discussed during the visit. Yes, I can that there was discussion about it, mainly around the ASEAN five point consensus that the ASEAN countries have and how that is progressing in regard to Myanmar.

Abhishek Jha: Hi sir, this is Abhishek Jha. I am Independent journalist. My question is regarding the President's mentioning of maintenance, repair of aerospace work. So if you could throw some light whether these issues were discussed and what kind of collaboration India and Singapore can have on this MOR sector.

Shri Jaideep Mazumdar, Secretary (East): I think your question is the same as was asked earlier on MROs which I have already responded. So is there anything further on that that you wish to know? I had said that yes this is an area where both India and Singapore are very interested in working together.

Shri Randhir Jaiswal, Official Spokesperson: With that we come to the close of this special briefing. Thank you very much for your presence.

Shri Jaideep Mazumdar, Secretary (East): Thank you.