Strong potential for S’pore-India bilateral cooperation, says PM Lee

SINGAPORE — Singapore and India have a “good base to work upon” to develop bilateral ties, but much more can be done as a new administration takes power in India, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said yesterday, voicing his optimism over areas of potential cooperation between the two countries.

“Your Prime Minister has already received Shanmugam, our Foreign Minister, and talked about — in a very focused way — about how we can take our relationship forward.

“Talking about urban development, talking about water and sewage projects — because that’s one of his passions; talking about port development, because that’s one of our strengths; talking about education and training, because that’s one of the areas ... you need to move forward on,” said Mr Lee at a conference organised by the Indian Institute of Management and attended by about 1,000 business and political leaders.

“We would like to develop these areas as well and we are hopeful that we would be able to do so, and I think it will be beneficial to both countries,” he said, adding that he looked forward to meeting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi before the end of the year.

But while bilateral relations between Singapore and India are solid with trade between the two countries continuing to grow, they have some way to go to match the ties that Singapore shares with China, Mr Lee said.

He said this in reply to a question posed by DBS chief executive Piyush Gupta, who moderated the session, on whether Singapore-India ties can be raised to the same level as those the Republic shares with China. Mr Gupta had asked if ethnic factors played a part in Singapore’s strong ties with China.

Mr Lee cited the size of the Chinese economy — the largest in Asia — and its external trade as factors contributing to Singapore’s ties with China, but noted that India has as large a population as its northern neighbour. And one way India can unlock this potential is to better connect with its citizens residing outside the country in order to form deeper ties with the outside world, something that Beijing has excelled at.

“The potential is always there … In terms of headcount, there are as many Indians as there are Chinese in the world, so why is the potential not fully developed? It’s partly because of the way reforms have been carried out in China — they started earlier and it took off. It’s also because India has a more complicated society and political situation, so things take longer to happen,” said Mr Lee.

“We would like to develop much more in India … There are many individual opportunities, and businessmen go there and they do well. They invest in hotels, projects, trade, infrastructure projects. (Singapore water treatment company) Hyflux is already there,” he said.

“But in the strategic sense, there’s not that same clear focus on development, on wanting to draw in all the resources that can help India prosper,” Mr Lee added.

He recounted how the Singapore Government has for at least 10 years been in discussions with the Indian government to set up something similar to the China-Singapore Suzhou Industrial Park in Tamil Nadu, but the project has not taken off.

“We still hope that, at some point, that will happen ... Although we don’t have projects like the Suzhou Industrial Park or Tianjin Eco-city (in India), we have significant investments. We have IT parks in Bangalore and a park in Hyderabad, and they are substantial investments,” he said.

Calling on India to engage more deeply with the region, Mr Lee said: “What we would like to see from our point of view sitting outside, is that India is able to spare the bandwidth and the focus in order to extend your reach, your influence, your engagement with the region and benefit from it.”