India companies can network globally through Singapore

Singapore is well placed to play a role in India’s “Act East” Policy given its geostrateic location at the heart of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), a senior minister of state said on 6 Mar 2018.

“India and Singapore have a strategic partnership built on deep bilateral economic, defence and cultural ties,” said Dr Mohamad Maliki Bin Osman, Senior Minister of State in the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defence.

As a civil aviation, trading and financial hub, Singapore is a good base for Indian companies to work from in order to expand to South East Asia and beyond.

Singapore can also play a role to connect the many companies from a wide range of coountries who have found Singapore to be a useful opertional base, added Dr Maliki.

He also highlighted one of the key India-Singapore close defence cooperation, underlining the importance of bilateral naval cooperation agreement, signed November 2017.

The agreement completed the triad of service-to-service agreements between Singapore and India, which completes air, sea and land pact between the two armed forces.

“Defence cooperation allows our countries to contribute towards our common goal of maintaining peace and security in our immedia and the broader region,” said Dr Maliki at the Singapore launch of the book “How India Sees the World – Kautilya to the 21st century” by former foreign secretary Shyam Saran.

The book launch was organized by the Institute of South Asian Studies, a think tank at the National University of Singapore. fii-news.com