New Delhi: The Indian “growth story” is intact, Ministry of External Affairs’ Secretary (East) P Kumaran said Thursday, adding that this was evident from Singapore’s bullishness over its investments in the country despite India-US tensions over President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi met his Singaporean counterpart Lawrence Wong Thursday, and both leaders agreed to expand the strategic nature of their countries’ ties. New Delhi has long been pushing to join the Malacca Straits Patrol—a grouping consisting of Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia—to jointly patrol the global trade chokepoint.
Singapore “acknowledged” India’s interest to join the grouping. The Malacca Straits are the entry point to the maritime regions of South East Asia, where China has expanded its footprint in recent years.
The South East Asian nation has been the largest investor in India over the last 25 years, with investments touching roughly $159 billion till 2024. With the estimates of investment flowing from Singapore to India in 2025, the figure is expected to cross $175 billion. Wong is in India for a three-day visit from 2 to 4 September.
“Singapore has been a very important partner for FDI over many, many years. In fact, over the last seven years or so, Singapore has been the largest FDI investor in India, averaging about $15 billion a year…the cumulative FDI from Singapore since the time we started keeping figures in around 2000, works out to about $170 billion,” Kumaran said at a special briefing by the MHA on Wong’s visit to India.
Kumaran added: “So clearly, there is a lot of interest. But given that the growth story of India is intact, the fact that there are multiple opportunities coming up, the fact that there are uncertainties globally, Singapore continues to see India as a place where significant growth is possible and their returns will continue to be good.”
Trump’s 50 percent tariffs on Indian exports have not deterred Singapore from looking to increase its stake in India’s economy. India and Singapore are looking to expand their ties in areas such as semiconductors, advanced manufacturing, green ports and infrastructure, digital assets such as central bank digital currencies and defence and security.
Wong reaffirmed his faith in India and Singapore’s ties in a “world marked by great uncertainty and turbulence”. While Trump was not directly named, trade for the South East Asian nation is extremely significant for its economy. According to the World Bank, the ratio of trade to gross domestic product of Singapore was 322 percent last year—that is, trade is thrice the size of the country’s economic activity. Any impact on the global trading regime is bound to negatively impact the country.
Wong will also call on President Droupadi Murmu before departing New Delhi. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar also met him earlier Thursday.
The Modi-Wong meeting resulted in the two countries announcing a joint vision for the relationship building upon its elevation to a comprehensive strategic partnership (CSP) last year.
Five memorandums of understanding (MoUs) were signed including in sectors such as financial technologies, skill training, space, green shipping and civil aviation. The joint vision announced by the two sides focuses on eight pillars—economic cooperation, skills training, digitalisation, sustainability, connectivity, healthcare and medicine and defence and security.
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Semiconductors to space & unmanned vehicles
The joint vision expands India and Singapore’s ties across sensitive strategic sectors including space, semiconductors and deepening defence technology cooperation. India raised the possibility to jointly patrol the Malacca Straits as well.
“Malacca Straits Patrol, this is something that is part of the regular patrolling that is undertaken by the four countries that are part of the Malacca Straits interface, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Singapore,” Kumaran said.
The Secretary (East) added: We have been asking, given that the Andaman Sea is next to the Malacca Straits, to participate in that. There are ongoing discussions. We still don’t have any conclusion on that. The expectation is that there will be some kind of coordination to ensure that there is synergy among the current members of the Malacca Straits Patrol and India as a contiguous state, which is next to the Malacca Straits.”
The joint vision document announced by India and Singapore called for the deepening of ties in defence technologies in emerging areas such as “quantum computing, artificial intelligence, automation and unmanned vessels”.
Kumaran highlighted that unmanned vessels are a “new area identified” for cooperation that could include both unmanned surface vessels and possibly even underwater vessels. However, the Secretary (East) pointed out that it is too early to comment on the exact nature of this partnership.
Semiconductors is another key area for India-Singapore ties.
“We have this India-Singapore semiconductor ecosystem partnership, which was signed during Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Singapore last year. It provides a framework for cooperation on developing semiconductor supply chains. Singapore started manufacturing hard disks, you know, Seagate and others invested in Singapore many years ago,” said Kumaran.
He added: “Singapore has also expressed interest in investments in this sector, and also getting their private sector companies to come in and expand their presence in India to set up a semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem clusters for both design and fabrication.”
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
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