New Delhi [India], January 17 (ANI): Secretary (East), Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), Jaideep Mazumdar, said on Friday, that Singapore President Tharman Shanmugaratnam is on a four-day state visit to India. He said that Singapore President and his delegation will be visiting Odisha today and a number of MoUs are expected to be signed during his visit.
While addressing a special briefing on Singapore President’s visit to India, Mazumdar said that Shanmugaratnam had expressed desire to visit eastern part of India during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Singapore in September last year. He said that Singapore President is keenly awaited by the Odisha government.
Speaking about Singapore President’s visit to Odisha, Jaideep Mazumdar said, “Today, President and his delegation travelling to Odisha. This is a significant, he’s taking with him a large and senior business delegation. He had expressed his interest to travel to the eastern part of India during Prime Minister’s visit to Singapore in September last year and Prime Minister had encouraged him to do so. It fits in with Prime Minister’s Purvodaya’s…,which is the development of the Eastern region and a number of MoUs are expected to be signed during the visit of the President of Singapore to Odisha. These are in areas of green hydrogen, green shipping, industrial park, petrochemical complexes and overall in skill development especially in the semiconductor sphere and in other skill development areas.”
“So, this will be a visit to Odisha which is very keenly awaited by the Odisha government. The Chief Minister of Odisha will also be hosting a banquet, in his honor, the Governor will also be having a meeting with the President and there will be other business meetings as well. The president will also go to Konark to visit the Sun Temple as well as an artist’s Village. So, all in all this is a fitting visit to commemorate 60 years of our diplomatic relations and on this occasion both the President of India and the president of Singapore jointly released a logo to commemorate the year-long observance of this important anniversary,” he added.
MEA Secretary noted that Singapore President’s visit takes off from where PM Modi’s visit built on in September latest year where the two nations upgraded ties to comprehensive strategic partnership.”
“The visit takes off from where Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi ji’s visit built on in September last year when we upgraded our relations with Singapore to that of a comprehensive strategic partnership and the various areas of emphasis in the various areas of cooperation that we identified during that time are also going to find their reflection during this visit. At that time, if you recall the India-Singapore ministerial Roundtable had identified some areas of emphasis, whether it is in semiconductors, the digital economy, in health, and skill development, semiconductor ecosystem development which were prioritized by those round tables, both the first and the second and the results of this particular visit will see the actualization of those,” he said.
Elaborating on Singapore President Tharman Shanmugaratnam’s visit to India, he said that his state visit commemorates the 60 years of diplomatic ties. Mazumdar said that Shanmugaratnam takes great interest in India-Singapore ties and India’s economic development.
Mazumdar said, “President of Singapore, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, is on a four-day state visit to India. This is his first state visit to India after being elected the President of Singapore in September 2023. He is of course no stranger to India. In fact, he knows India very well. He takes great interest in Indo-Singapore relationship as well as in India’s economic development. He has had very close relations with our leadership. If you recall, in 2016 Prime Minister Sri Narendra Modi had invited him to deliver the opening, the inaugural address, Niti Aayog speech on transforming India, where the entire cabinet and the senior bureaucracy of India was present. And over the years he has been to India many times. So in a way this was a culmination of his association with India and that too on the 60th year of our diplomatic relations.”
“So, the President is accompanied by his spouse, Mrs Jane Itoge, as well as two ministers and three members of parliament and also senior officials and a business delegation. As I said, this is the state visit to commemorate 60 years of our diplomatic relations. It was in 1965, that Singapore was born as an independent nation and India was one of the first countries to have recognised Singapore, a fact that is acknowledged very much by the Singaporean leadership,” he added.
During his visit to India, Singapore President was accorded a ceremonial welcome at Rashtrapati Bhavan by President of India Droupadi Murmu. Mazumdar said that five cabinet ministers called on Singapore President on Thursday.
“During this visit, the President was accorded a ceremonial welcome at Rashtrapati Bhavan by the President of India, as well as the Prime Minister, and members of the Cabinet were present and senior officials. He then proceeded to lay a wreath at the Samadhi of Mahatma Gandhi. Then, External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar called on his Excellency yesterday. There was also a series of meetings that he had with several ministers, as many as five Cabinet Ministers called on him, ministers in different fields, Minister for IT, Minister for Roads and Highways, Finance Minister, Minister for Skill Development and others and of course Minister for Commerce and Industry,” he said.
On talks between Singapore President and PM Modi, President Murmu, Mazumdar said, “This was followed in the evening by talks between the President, Smt Droupadi Murmu and the visiting President, where they covered a wide swath of bilateral areas of interest and cooperation, and a meeting with the Prime Minister where they discussed India’s development and Singapore’s development and how India and ASEAN countries provide the growth engine for Asia and in many respects for the world and how our bilateral cooperation with countries of ASEAN can really be a growth engine for the world. A banquet was hosted by Her Excellency, Smt Droupadi Murmu, the honourable President of India.”
Singapore President Tharman Shanmugaratnam on Tuesday arrived in India on a State Visit. He was warmly received by the Minister of State (MoS) in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry Jitin Prasada at the airport, according to MEA. (ANI)
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