Modi in Singapore: India, Singapore signed pact for strategic partnership, 9 other deals

Singapore: India and Singapore signed a joint declaration on strategic partnership and nine bilateral accords on Tuesday, the concluding day of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's two-day visit to this city state when he called Singapore as Asia's lion.

He also pledged to make the Indian tax regime more transparent and predictable.

It was a packed schedule for Modi as he began the day with a breakfast meeting with Singaporean leaders, met President Tony Tan and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, witnessed the signing of the accords, attended a lunch hosted by Hsien, laid a wreath at the INA marker, visited the Institute of Technical Education that is involved in skill development, addressed the India-Singapore Economic Convention, briefly met select CEOs and finally addressed the Indian diaspora, whom he praised for building up the country's image.

Modi left for home late in the night. Singapore was the second leg of his visit that earlier took him to Malaysia for the ASEAN-India Summit and the East Asia Summit.

Modi and Hsien signed the joint declaration to elevate bilateral relations to a "strategic partnership to deepen and broaden engagement in existing areas of cooperation and catalyze new ones ranging from political, defense, and security cooperation to economic, cultural, and people to people contact", an official statement said.

Besides this, two agreements on defense cooperation and loan of artifacts from India to Singapore, two executive program/operationalization documents on arts and culture, and white-shipping, and five memorandums of agreement (MoUs) on cyber security, civil aviation, knowledge exchange in the field of planning, urban planning, and combating drug trafficking were also signed.

The agreements were signed after talks between the two prime ministers here.

After the signing of the documents, external affairs ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup tweeted that the two prime ministers noted the importance of culture between the two countries and encouraged more exhibitions, exchanges, and interactions.

Modi and after the signing of the documents, external affairs ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup tweeted that the two prime ministers noted the importance of culture between the two countries and encouraged more exhibitions, exchanges and interactions.

Modi and Hsien noted their shared interest in furthering cooperation in the areas of science and technology, particularly in space, biomedicine and Ayurveda, the spokesperson added.

The two prime ministers also released two postage stamps showing Rashtrapati Bhavan and Istana, the Singaporean presidential palace, to mark 50 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Speaking at the lunch hosted by his Singaporean counterpart, Modi described the city-state Singapore as Asia's economic lion which has been a major partner in India's transformation.

The Asiatic lion may now only be found in Gujarat. Asia's economic lion is to be found here – in Singapore,

On his part, Hsien said the diverse Indian community in Singapore has played a large part in building the country.

Hsien said Singapore's Indian pioneers include G. Sarangapany, who came here from Tamil Nadu in 1924. He founded the Tamil "Murasu" newspaper, and sold the paper at one cent a copy so that the poor could read it too, Channel News Asia reported.

"Because of leaders like him, Singapore has today a thriving community of Indians who are well-integrated into our society and form an essential part of our multi-racial, multi-religious mix," Lee said.

Addressing the diaspora, Modi said: "The entire world is reposing a lot of faith in India today and the reason behind this is not Modi, but the Indians settled abroad."

Wherever you have gone, you have made that country your own, irrespective of circumstances,

Addressing the Singaporean business community at the India-Singapore Economic Convention, Modi admitted that there were still a number of regulatory and taxation issues in India and tried to hard sell the country's business potential to Singapore's corporate community, – and assured that he will do the hand-holding when they come to India.

In the past few months, the interest of foreign investors in India has gone up tremendously. However, there were a number of regulatory and taxation issues which were adversely impacting on their sentiments. We have taken very decisive steps to remove many of the long-pending concerns,

Modi was hopeful that the much-awaited goods and service tax regime will roll out from 2016.

He said India's growth rate was 7.3 percent last year and the World Bank has projected even better growth this year.

Modi observed that Singapore has emerged as the second largest source of foreign direct investment (FDI) in India. "Outward Indian FDI to Singapore has also increased in recent times. Singapore is now one of the top destinations for Indian investments.

We are working hard to make sure that our tax regime is transparent and predictable. We are also keen to see that genuine investors and the honest tax payers get quick and fair decisions on tax matters. With this objective, we have already made a number of corrections,

He also said that in the last 18 months of the National Democratic Alliance-run government, reforms were happening in a "big way" and were now reaching the last mile.

Modi also paid his respects at the Indian National Army (INA) memorial marker here.

"Remembering the valiant heroes of India's independence struggle. PM pays homage at the INA memorial marker," Swarup tweeted.

The prime minister bowed before the photograph of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose placed at the memorial. Netaji led the INA, which was dedicated to winning India's independence from the British empire.

(Inputs from IANS)