Opening Remarks by Minister of State for Energy, Trade and Industry Gan Siow Huang at the tabla! Leadership Exchange

Good evening to everyone.

Mr Predeep Manon said all the things that I wanted to say. Let me just add a few points from the perspective of the government.

The relationship between India and Singapore actually has been growing very well. Some of you would know that this year we had the fourth ISMR, where ministers from both Singapore and India got together to talk about areas of collaboration. There are actually six specific areas for collaboration, and parallel to the ISMR, there's also the ISBR for the business group. So in parallel, the business community also came together to talk about the actions and the possible business opportunities that we could consider for the benefit of both economies.

On top of that, there are very frequent bilateral meetings and engagements. Besides those that Venga mentioned earlier on, the Indian Finance Minister was also here very recently, and our leaders also have been going to India very regularly. Myself, in November, I'll be making two trips to India.

So you can see that at the government level, there is this desire to do more.

Why does Singapore want to do more with India? India is a big market and one with a lot of potential, but not an easy one. I know that amongst the audience here, many of you are business owners. You probably know better than I do that India, as a country, there are actually many different states, and each state operates by itself quite autonomously, and has different sets of regulations, business landscape, culture.

And it's not so easy for locals, Singaporeans, coming from a very small population, to be able to understand and navigate and adapt quickly. Hence, at the government level, we commit to create more bridges between the business communities on both sides.

I can see that there is good momentum. SBF, Singapore Business Federation, last year set up this Singapore centre for businesses from Singapore that want to discover the Indian market, understand the business regulations, to be able to find partners, and also get some initial hand-holding. And I encourage businesses here in Singapore that are interested to find out more about the operating environment in India to check out this new business centre that SBF has recently established.

Between India and Singapore, we now have our Comprehensive Strategic Partnership – CSP for short. We don't have CSP with many countries. It's only reserved for very strategic partner countries, and India is one of them. So it goes to show that at the highest level, we want to be able to go broader and go deeper in our relationship with India.

Next year, Singapore will be the chair of ASEAN. We're looking forward to that. A lot of preparation. I see some colleagues from MFA and METI. They're working very hard to make sure Singapore's Chairmanship of ASEAN will be a fruitful one and a successful one.

And for the business community, what does it mean? We are trying to build more bridges. Firstly, amongst the ASEAN Member States, better integration, more connectivity, lower the trade barriers, improve digital trade, strengthen or start the green economy going. And then with other countries outside ASEAN – no surprise – U.S. China, India, and a few others. India will feature strongly. We will want to get ASEAN to have more trade with India. There is an existing ASEAN India Trade Agreement (AITIGA), you might have heard of it. It's been around for a long time, I think since 2009. The officials are working very hard to upgrade this trade agreement, and when it goes through, I'm optimistic. Eventually, it will unlock even more opportunities. And by that, I mean lowering trade barriers – tariff and non-tariff type of barriers – and open up more markets for businesses on both sides.

So lots of things to look forward to as far as India and Singapore is concerned, bilateral relationship as well as trade and investment relations. Thank you.