Singapore President Tharman Shanmugaratnam will be travelling to India next week from January 14 to 18, a visit that comes even as India and Singapore commemorate 60th year of establishment of ties. This is after a gap of 10 years that a Singapore President is travelling to India, the last being Tony Tan Keng Yam in February 2015. 

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January 16 is expected to be the main day of engagement in Delhi, with the Singapore President being welcomed at the Rashtrapati Bhavan, meeting with PM Modi and other key engagements. In Delhi, he will also meet Indian thought leaders, the Singaporean community in India & will confer the Honorary Citizen Award on former DG CII, Tarun Das for his contribution to Singapore India ties.

 The visit will see the Singapore President travelling to Odisha, where not only the Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi will on him but he will visit skills centre set up by Singapore's Institute of Technical Education Services with funding from Asian development Bank, a vaccine manufacturing centre and UNESCO World Heritage Site-Sun Temple in Konark. 

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Important to point out, that 2 MoU are expected to be signed as well during the visit, one on skilling and one on Semi- conductors in Odisha. Singapore has been an active supporter of India's Skills development journey, and has helped to establish 5 skills centres in India

The visit comes a month after the visit of PM Modi to Singapore. As part of the 60 years celebration of diplomatic ties and 10 years of Strategic Partnership, the Singapore PM Lawrence Wong is expected to travel to India this year. Singapore is India's top foreign investor, and the country makes up about 24% of India's FDI inflows since 2000. 

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Defence, connectivity, finance have been other domains where both countries have been increasing ties.  The digital payments linkages between Singapore's Pay Now and India's UPI was launched in Feb 2023, allowing participating financial institutions to send and receive funds between banks or e-wallets in real time. The 31st Singapore, India maritime bilateral exercise, which is the longest running joint maritime exercise between India and a foreign partner, took place in October 2024.