Prime Minister Narendra Modi will leave for a two-nation tour of Indonesia and Singapore on Tuesday, 29 May. While it will be Modi’s first visit to Indonesia, it will be his third to Singapore.
The visit is being seen as India’s attempt at deepening the ties it shares with ASEAN nations in accordance with New Delhi’s Act East policy.
Modi is scheduled to reach Indonesia on 29 May and leave for Singapore from there on 31 May for a three-day visit till 2 June.
On 30 May in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, PM Modi is scheduled to hold a summit with President Joko Widodo. They will inaugurate a kite festival organised jointly by Ahmedabad’s Kite Museum and Jakarta’s Museum Layang Layang.
After his meeting with President Widodo, the PM will address a CEOs forum. The Muslim-majority nation is India’s largest trading partner within the ASEAN with bilateral trade standing at around $18 billion.
Modi will also address the Indian community in southeast Asia’s largest nation. Indonesia is home to around 100,000 people of Indian origin and 7,000 NRIs. The last visit made by an Indian PM to Indonesia was in October 2013 when then prime minister Manmohan Singh.
The PM has previously visited Singapore on two occasions – in March 2015 to attend the state funeral of the city state’s first Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and then again in November the same year for his first official visit.
This time, the PM will begin his Singapore tour from the India-Singapore Enterprise and Innovation Exhibition.
With strengthening of economic ties with the city state high on his agenda, the PM will speak extensively about India’s economic engagement with ASEAN at various events centred on business, including a meeting with the top 20 CEOs of Singapore.
On 1 June, he will hold a summit meeting with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and call on Singapore President Halimah Yacob. A visit to Nanyang Technological University is also in his itinerary.
Singapore is home to around 800,000 people of Indian origin and has around 8,000 registered Indian companies.
The highlight of the PM’s visit to Singapore will be his keynote address at the Shangri-La Dialogue on 2 June. It would be the first time that an Indian PM will address the meeting of defence ministers, military chiefs and top defence officials from across the Indo-Pacific, held annually since 2002.
It is expected that Modi will speak on the challenge Asia and the ASEAN nations face from terrorism and other sovereignty issues. He will also discuss his successful informal summits with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Modi will also highlight the progress made in India-France relations with his meetings with French President Emmanuel Macron – something that will also feature in his talks with the Indonesian President.
On June 2, he will unveil a plaque of Mahatma Gandhi and visit some cultural sites. Thereafter, he will visit the Indian Heritage Centre.
Before his departure for India, Modi will go to the Changi naval base, the latest naval facility of the Republic of Singapore Navy (RSN).