Singapore, Nov 24 (PTI) India and Singapore on Tuesday elevated their ties to the ‘strategic partnership’ level and signed bilateral agreements for enhanced defence cooperation and in areas like cyber security, shipping and civil aviation after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met his Singaporean counterpart Lee Hsien Loong.
Modi also met Singapore President Tony Tan Keng on the second day of his visit today and was accorded a ceremonial welcome here at Istana, the official residence and office of the President.
The ten pacts signed by the two sides included a joint declaration by the two Prime Ministers on a strategic partnership.
“India and Singapore elevate their 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. The strategic partnership is also a framework to contribute to greater regional stability and growth,” the joint declaration said.
The other pacts included an agreement between the two countries on enhanced defence cooperation, which provides for defence ministers’ dialogue, joint exercises between armed forces, cooperation between defence industries to identify areas of co-production and co-development.
The two sides also signed an agreement on the extension of loan of artifacts to the Asian Civilisations Museum of Singapore and an MoU between Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), the Indian IT department and Singapore Computer Emergency Response Team (SingCERT), Singapore’s Cyber Security Agency on security cooperation.
The MoU promotes closer cooperation and exchange of information pertaining to cyber security between the Computer Emergency Response Teams of the two countries by establishment of a broader framework for future dialogue; exchange of information on cyber attacks; research collaboration in smart technologies; cyber security policies and best practices as well as professional exchanges.
