India, Singapore set to unveil MoU on cooperation in semiconductor ecosystem
The other agreements in areas such as digital, health cooperation and skill development were negotiated and finalised over the past few months
India and Singapore are set to unveil about half a dozen agreements, including a crucial one on creating a semiconductor ecosystem, during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the city state this week, people familiar with the matter said on Monday.
Modi will travel to Singapore during September 4-5, after a two-day visit to Brunei, and the trip comes days after a meeting last month of the India-Singapore ministerial roundtable, which included advanced manufacturing and semiconductors as new areas for cooperation.
The other agreements in areas such as digital, health cooperation and skill development were negotiated and finalised over the past few months, whereas the agreement on semiconductors was rapidly concluded by India’s ministry of electronics and information technology and its Singaporean counterpart in the past few weeks, the people cited above said on condition of anonymity.
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While Singapore doesn’t have its own semiconductor manufacturing majors, it has built up a robust and diverse ecosystem of equipment firms and material suppliers, as well as research and development and manufacturing activities across the value chain, including integrated circuit design, wafer fabrication and testing.
The new memorandum of understanding (MoU) will enable India to benefit from Singapore’s ecosystem.
“The MoU will help India’s efforts to create its own ecosystem,” one of the people cited above said.
Singapore is an integral part of the worldwide semiconductor supply chain, accounting for 10% of all chips produced globally and about 20% of the global production of semiconductor manufacturing equipment.
Jaideep Mazumdar, secretary (East) in the external affairs ministry, said India and Singapore have complementary interests in the field of semiconductors. “[Singapore] has experience of more than 20 years in this area. This is an area where we are very keen to get into,” he told a media briefing on Monday.
“This entire ecosystem is what we are discussing between the two of us and how we can cooperate on that,” Mazumdar said, adding that the visit is expected to give a thrust to cooperation in semiconductors.
Modi and his Singaporean counterpart Lawrence Wong will review progress under the bilateral strategic partnership, which completes a decade in 2024, and discuss regional and global issues. Modi will also meet President Tharman Shanmugaratnam and business leaders from Singapore.
Singapore is currently India’s largest trade partner within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) and the sixth largest trade partner worldwide. Besides, Singapore was the largest source of foreign direct investment (FDI) into India in 2023, and its cumulative investments since 2000 are worth $160 billion.
The trip to Brunei during September 3-4, the first ever bilateral visit by an Indian premier, will see Modi holding talks with the senior leadership of the Southeast Asian state, including Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, to review ongoing cooperation and explore new areas of collaboration.
In addition to being an important partner in India’s “Act East” policy and its vision for the Indo-Pacific, Brunei occupies a special place in New Delhi’s space programme. The two sides have signed three MoUs in this field and in 2000, India established a telemetry tracking and command station in Brunei that allows it to track and monitor all eastward launches of satellites and rockets.
India and Brunei signed an MoU for defence cooperation in 2016 that provides the framework for coast guard and naval exchanges, training and joint exercises. The two sides are currently working on setting up a joint working group on defence.
While India imports some hydrocarbons from Brunei, it is interested in securing more predictable and long-term supplies of gas, Mazumdar said. With India’s demand for gas set to rise manifold, he said, “That is an opportunity for the Brunei side to lock in long-term gas supply arrangements, if they wish to do so.”
The India side will emphasise during the visits to both Singapore and Brunei the need to conclude an ongoing review of the Asean-India Trade in Goods Agreement by 2025, Mazumdar said. This agreement was signed and entered into force in January 2010.
