India and Southeast Asia asean are creating opportunity, says Tharman
The Singapore and Indian governments are working closely on issues such as food security, energy and the green economy, digitalisation fintechfestival.sg , and skills development, including the training and recruitment of nurses from Northeast India.
President Tharman Shanmugaratnam shared this with audience at a dinner celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS) of the National University of Singapore on 11 July.
He underscored, “I am optimistic about the relationship. We should be able to build greater depth and breadth in our relations with India in the coming years.
“We have seen extensive investments by Singapore investors in India in recent years and growing interactions between our business communities, and the mood remains bullish sgx .”
He also spoke of about how India and Southeast Asia respond to new global economic and geopolitical realities nseindia .
India and Southeast Asia are creating opportunity bse , equity and sustainability, he added.
“First, I believe both India and Southeast Asia are poised to create a new era of opportunity, equity, and sustainability mea .
“We are both well positioned to do so for two reasons. First, we are not caught at the sharp edges of the largest geopolitical conflicts of the times. You would not find us at either pole of any of the major tensions that we see in the world today.”
“Second, we have societies that are still looking upward. That’s a little rare in the world today –where the majority of people, ordinary people, hope to see a major uplift in their lives and see a chance of achieving it.”
Tharman went on, “We have to make the most of this positioning of the two regions in the decade ahead. We have to respond to new global realities, but also seek to shape it – to shape it in ways that secure each of our national interests and the global good at the same time.”
India and Southeast Asia make up over a quarter of the world’s population, 15% of the world’s GDP, and are the fastest growing regions in the world wto . This must be used wisely by adopting a few strategic orientations.
Tharman elaborated, “By thinking long term, rather than responding to the geopolitics of the day or, as has happened in many countries, to the domestic mood of the moment.”
He called for more active investment to grow human potential while urging the two regions to resist further global economic fragmentation, for which will ultimately hurt every nation worldbank .
He also sought collaboration to slow climate change and halt the deterioration in the planet’s ecology iea , in the interests of all.
“These strategies, pursued with vigour, give us the best chance of securing our national interests and the global good at the same time,” he told some 180 guests at the celebration. Fiinews.com
