India and Singapore sign strategic partnership deals

New Delhi: Aiming to further bolster bilateral ties, India and Singapore inked nine accords on Tuesday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his two-day visit agreed on nine bilateral accords with the country.

The joint agreements would help develop enhanced and profound relations, said an official statement released after the meeting.

"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," it read.

The statement also underscored the need to develop these relations as better regional steadiness could be achieved through united efforts of countries.

"The strategic partnership is also a framework to contribute to greater regional stability and growth," it added.

Modi also tweeted about the meeting saying the discussions were productive and ideas were deliberated to develop further cooperation between the two Asian countries.

Two agreements on defence collaboration and loan of artefacts from India to Singapore were also signed. Executive plan documents on arts, culture and five memorandums of understandings (MoUs) on civil aviation, information exchange in the areas of development, urban planning, and fighting drug trafficking were also signed.

After the striking of the deals, Vikas Swarup, spokesperson of external affairs ministry of India tweeted that both the prime ministers understood the significance of culture between the two countries and exhilarated more exhibitions, exchanges and collaborations.

The two Prime Ministers also released two postal stamps displaying Rashtrapati Bhavan and Istana, the Singaporean presidential palace. The stamps were unveiled to mark the 50 years of diplomatic associations between the two nations.