PM Modi likely to visit Singapore, Brunei in September

Reflecting India's continued engagement with South-East Asian countries, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi could visit Singapore and Brunei in the first week of September. The last visit of PM Modi to Singapore was in 2018 for a bilateral visit and later to attend the 13th East Asia Summit.

Ahead of the Indian Prime Minister's visit, Singapore on Monday hosted the 2nd India-Singapore Ministerial Roundtable, which saw the biggest gathering of Indian and Singaporean ministers.

From the Indian side, Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, EAM Dr S Jaishankar, Trade Minister Piyush Goyal, and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, were present. The Singaporean side includedDeputy PM Gan Kim Yong, Foreign Affairs Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, Home Affairs & Law Minister K.Shanmugam, Digital Development and Information Minister Josephine Teo, Minister for Manpower Dr Tan See Leng and Minister for Transport Chee Hong Tat.

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The roundtable focused on five areas of collaboration: food cooperation; digitalisation; energy and green economy projects; skills development; and pharmaceuticals and healthcare. There has been good progress since the inaugural meeting of the ISMR in 2022 in India.

In the digital economy, the digital payments linkage between Singapore’s PayNow and India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) was launched in February 2023, allowing participating financial institutions to send and receive funds between banks or e-wallets in real time

Singapore is India’s top foreign investor and accounted for about 23 per cent of India’s FDI equity inflows since 2000. Indian investment in Singapore has also grown from S$481 million in 2004 to about S$25.3 billion in 2022. Singapore has been an active supporter of India’s skills development journey. This includes the establishment of five skills centres in India by Singapore’s Institute of Technical Education Services (ITEES).

The next leg of the visit will be Brunei Darussalam. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah first met on the side lines of 25th ASEAN Summit at Nay Pyi Taw in November 2014. The two leaders also met on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit in November 2017 in Manila.

The last visit to the country by any Indian PM was by Dr Manmohan Singh in 2013 for the 11th ASEAN-India Summit and the 8th EAS Summit.

A key component of ties has been defence, with Indian Naval ships visiting Brunei and Brunei's naval ships visiting India. The officers from Indian armed forces have regularly attended the Royal Brunei Armed Forces Command Staff Course at Staff College, Brunei Darussalam.

As part of capacity building, 68 Bruneian nationals have attended various ITEC courses in India.14,500 Indians are living in Brunei, and work in the oil and gas industries, construction, retail businesses. A substantial number of the doctors in Brunei Darussalam are from India. Other professionals include engineers, IT professionals, etc.

The visit by PM Modi to the two countries is being undertaken at a time when Vietnam and Malaysia's PMs visited India. The Indian President Droupadi Murmu had travelled to Fiji, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand. EAM Dr S Jaishankar was in Laos for ASEAN meetings. More visits from ASEAN countries are slated for India. The high level engagement comes amid Delhi's act east policy.