India, Singapore sign pacts to bolster maritime heritage, food safety, telecom ties
New Delhi, Aug 20 (IANS) India and Singapore on Thursday signed two memorandums of understanding (MoUs) and one Letter of Intent (LoI) to strengthen bilateral maritime heritage cooperation, closer ties in the area of food safety and cooperation in the fields of telecommunications and broadcasting regulations.
The agreements were signed during the 4th India-Singapore Ministerial Roundtable which was attended in Singapore by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Union External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal, and Minister of State for Electronics and IT, and Commerce and Industry Jitin Prasada.
These agreements will further strengthen bilateral cooperation across diverse areas of mutual interest, according to a Finance Ministry statement issued after the meeting.
The Singapore delegation was led by Gan Kim Yong, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade and Industry.
K. Shanmugam, Senior Minister and Coordinating Minister for National Security; Vivian Balakrishnan, Minister for Foreign Affairs; Josephine Teo, Minister for Digital Development and Information; and Jeffrey Siow, Minister for Transport and Second Minister for Finance, also participated in the Roundtable.
The 4th India-Singapore Ministerial Roundtable reviewed progress and explored new opportunities for cooperation across six key pillars — Advanced Manufacturing, Connectivity, Digitalisation, Healthcare and Medicine, Skills Development and Sustainability.
The discussions reaffirmed the strong momentum in the India-Singapore partnership and the commitment to translate this into concrete outcomes, further strengthening the future-oriented and mutually beneficial economic partnership, the statement said.
Singapore is India’s largest trade partner in Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). It is the leading source of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), among the largest sources of External Commercial Borrowings and Foreign Portfolio Investment.
Bilateral trade expanded after the conclusion of Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) from $6.7 billion in FY 2004-05 to $36.1 billion in 2025-26.
Singapore is India’s sixth largest trade partner with a share of around 2.96 per cent of India’s overall trade.
India’s imports from Singapore in FY 2025-26 were $24.24 billion, exports to Singapore totaled $11.86 billion with trade deficit of $12.38 billion.
In FY 2025-26, Singapore was the largest source of FDI into India, with FDI flows of $19.8 billion.
The cumulative FDI inflows from Singapore to India stood at $194.68 billion (April 2000–March 2026), which is around 1/4th of total FDI inflows in India.
Top sectors attracting FDI Equity inflows from Singapore are: Services Sector, Computer Software and Hardware, Trading, Telecommunications, and Drugs and Pharmaceuticals.
About 9,000 Indian companies are registered in Singapore.
Six PSUs, 10 banks, CII, FICCI have their offices in Singapore.
During the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Singapore in September 2024, it was announced that ‘Invest India’ will open an office in Singapore to facilitate investments from the Southeast Asian country.
–IANS
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