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
catalyse new ones ranging from political, defence and security
cooperation to economic, cultural and people to people contact”, an
official statement said.
Besides this, two agreements on defence
cooperation and loan of artifacts from India to Singapore, two executive
programme/operationalisation 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 postal 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,” Modi said.
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 report“d.
“Because of leaders like him, Singapore
has today a thriving community of Indians who are well-integrated in our
society and form an essential part of our multi-racial, multi-relig”ous
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,” Modi added.
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 said.
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 honest tax payers get quick and fair
decisions on tax matters. To this objective, we have already made a
number of corrections,” the prime minister said.
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 to 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.
