Question

Mr Neil Parekh Nimil Rajnikant: To ask the Minister for Trade and Industry (a) whether he can provide an update on the progress made in the five mutually beneficial areas of collaboration that are identified in the first inaugural meeting of the India-Singapore Ministerial Roundtable in September 2022; and (b) what is the Ministry’s assessment on the role of the business community, in particular the Chambers of Commerce and trade associations, to achieve the desired outcomes laid down at the meeting.

Oral Answer (to be attributed to Minister of State for Trade and Industry Alvin Tan)

1. The India-Singapore Ministerial Roundtable (or ISMR) identified five areas of collaboration at the inaugural meeting held in September 2022. These are food cooperation; digitalisation; energy and green economy projects; skills development; and pharmaceuticals and healthcare.

2. Since then, the digital payments linkage between Singapore’s PayNow and India’s Unified Payments Interface was launched in February 2023. This allows customers of participating financial institutions to send and receive funds between banks or e-wallets in real time. We also facilitated a pilot shipment involving the digital exchange of Bills of Lading through the TradeTrust framework. The shipment showed that the digitalisation of cross-border trade financing documents can improve the speed, efficiency, and accuracy of information of shipment transactions. There are ongoing discussions on other initiatives, such as increasing food trade between our two countries.

3. India has the world’s 5th largest GDP, and its rapid economic growth presents many opportunities for Singapore companies. The Chambers of Commerce and trade associations play a key role in encouraging and helping our enterprises to do more business in India. For example, the Singapore Business Federation and the Singapore Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry led business delegations to the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit and Tamil Nadu Global Investors Meet in January 2024.