Indian media Economic Times gave a rosy coverage yesterday (15 Aug) to the news of Singapore President Halimah Yacob saying that both India and Singapore shared a robust partnership that is broad and deep and is underpinned by strong fundamentals like people-to-people ties.
Singapore and India have managed to forge even closer ties through continued mutual support despite the challenges brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, Mdm Halimah said during her congratulatory message to India on its 75th Independence Day.
“On behalf of the people of Singapore, I extend my warmest congratulations to Your Excellency and the people of India on the occasion of India’s 75th Independence Day. Please accept my best wishes for Your Excellency’s good health and continued success,” she said.
“Despite the challenges brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, our two countries have managed to forge even closer ties through continued mutual support.”
She said Singapore continues to be confident of India’s growth prospects and remains the largest source of foreign direct investment annually.
“As we look ahead and seek to future-proof our workforce and economies, our two countries are also pursuing greater cooperation in emerging areas of Fintech, digitisation, and innovation,” she said.
“Given the wide-ranging cooperation between our two countries, I am confident that relations between Singapore and India will continue to strengthen as we emerge from the pandemic.”
Indeed, Singapore is currently the largest foreign investor in India. One of the companies that has invested heavily in India is DBS.
Last year, DBS even acquired the struggling Indian bank, Lakshmi Vilas Bank (LVB), to bail it out as India’s financial industry suffered a series of shocks since the outbreak of a shadow banking crisis in 2018. DBS is said to have pumped in 25 billion rupees (US$336 million) in fresh capital into LVB.
In terms of people-to-people ties, there are many Indian nationals working in Singapore presently and some have even become new citizens.
In fact, it was revealed by Manpower Minister Tan See Leng in Parliament last month that 25 percent of the 177,000 EP holders in Singapore came from India alone (‘Minister Tan See Leng: Increase in Indian EP holders to 25% last year not due to CECA‘, 8 Jul).
However contrary to expectation for mutual exchange in professional workforce after the signing of Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) in 2005, there has been lesser Singaporeans living in India over the past 15 years.
