The India opportunity Singapore should not underestimate

IN 1994, Singapore’s then prime minister Goh Chok Tong visited an empty site in Bengaluru, India. When he returned to the site in January 2000, the International Tech Park Bangalore was in operation.

Within 18 months of opening, the tech park had generated more than 2,500 skilled jobs and secured commitments for 75 per cent of its office space.

Karnataka’s industrial development agency, Tata Industries and a Singapore consortium led by JTC Corp had brought complementary capabilities together.

Indian technology talent needed a business environment that multinational companies could rely on; Singapore had experience developing and managing it. Each side created opportunities for the other.

Three decades later, the relationship operates on a different scale. India recorded US$19.8 billion in foreign direct investment equity from Singapore in the financial year ended Mar 31, 2026, alongside US$36.1 billion in bilateral goods trade.

India’s push into semiconductors, artificial intelligence, clean energy and advanced manufacturing now creates an opportunity to extend that partnership. Singapore can help build Indian industries while becoming the regional base through which they reach Asean markets.

The political foundations for Singapore to do so are already in place.

The 2005 Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement, the 2024 Comprehensive Strategic Partnership and its 2025 road map underpin ties between New Delhi and Singapore.

The August 2026 ministerial roundtable again prioritised manufacturing, connectivity, digitalisation, sustainability and skills. Bringing these priorities together would help firms build the capabilities and commercial relationships that new industries need.

Singaporean companies already supply parts of that system.

CapitaLand reported more than 55 assets across eight Indian cities in August 2025. PSA Mumbai’s expansion doubled annual container-handling capacity to 4.8 million twenty-foot equivalent units. Sembcorp has reported 2.8 gigawatts of Indian wind capacity under its own operations and maintenance.

Industrial premises, electricity and export connections give other businesses a foundation on which to expand. Extending that foundation into new industries requires technological learning. Semiconductor cooperation already encompasses goods movements, skills and research.

Singapore’s equipment suppliers could help Indian companies qualify components, while joint artificial intelligence applications could improve factory inspection and logistics. Supplier contracts, apprenticeships and working capital would help smaller businesses invest in equipment and quality control.

Locally, businesses would gain by serving several customers, carrying knowledge and employment beyond the original project.

Those investments become more viable when customers are involved early. The 2025 agreement to develop a green and digital shipping corridor connects India’s potential to produce alternative marine fuels with Singapore’s maritime economy.

Singapore could assemble finance and purchase agreements alongside production technology. By connecting Indian producers with regional demand, it could help turn technical potential into bankable projects.

That coordinating role can extend across Asean. UOB already describes its Mumbai operations as supporting Indian businesses’ Asean engagement through trade finance and treasury services.

Singapore’s regional headquarters ecosystem offers a platform from which an Indian equipment maker could find distributors, adapt products and coordinate servicing across South-east Asia. The same networks could connect Asean suppliers with Indian customers.

Singapore would become an organising node for production and trade in both directions, giving India’s Act East policy a base in everyday commercial relationships.

For Singapore, the payoff would grow as these businesses expand.

A manufacturer entering a second Asean market needs additional financing, partners and commercial advice. Serving those needs would create skilled jobs and recurring business in Singapore. Each relationship would deepen its companies’ knowledge of regional industries, making subsequent projects easier to organise.

That accumulated knowledge is also a source of influence. Singapore companies that help qualify suppliers, assemble finance and connect buyers can help shape how production networks develop.

Hosting these decisions would sustain Singapore’s relevance as industrial capacity spreads across larger economies. Its stake in India would also grow with the Indian companies whose regional expansion it helps organise.

Rules of origin nevertheless place important limits on this model. India’s withdrawal from the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) negotiations in 2019 means that establishing a Singapore office does not transform Indian goods into RCEP-origin products.

But the existing Asean-India trade architecture offers a narrower route. Qualifying Indian goods can, subject to the agreement’s conditions, be imported into Singapore and re-exported to another Asean-India Free Trade Agreement participant using a back-to-back certificate of origin.

Commercial coordination can therefore be separated from the physical origin of the product. This means Singapore can provide financing, contracting, warehousing and regional distribution while the goods retain their qualifying Indian origin.

The larger opportunity lies in making the existing system easier for businesses to use.

India, Singapore and Asean partners should prioritise simplifying origin documentation, creating clearer customs procedures and more interoperable trade documentation. Asean’s own experience with electronic certificates of origin and the Asean Single Window provides a useful model for reducing the administrative cost of proving origin.

Non-tariff barriers present a second challenge. Different technical regulations, product standards, testing requirements and conformity-assessment procedures can force companies to demonstrate compliance separately across markets, eroding the advantages of regional production.

India and Singapore should therefore use the ongoing Asean-India trade agenda to push for greater alignment of standards, sector-specific mutual recognition of conformity assessments and recognition of accredited testing results.

The objective should not be identical regulation across economies, but a system in which a component tested to an agreed standard in one participating market does avoid redundant testing in another.

Still, even well-designed commercial partnerships depend on political continuity.

In Amaravati, Ascendas-Singbridge and Sembcorp Development were appointed to develop a commercial district in 2017. After a change of state government, the venture was terminated in 2019.

The setback shows why national diplomatic agreements need dependable arrangements with the state authorities responsible for land, utilities and approvals.

Managing those risks supports a larger ambition for Singapore’s leaders: making Indian industrial capability part of the city-state’s strategy for Asean. The ministerial roundtable should connect Indian clusters with Singaporean finance, technical partners and Asean buyers, staging investment against state delivery of infrastructure and approvals.

The Bengaluru park showed how a partnership could create the conditions for an industry to grow. The next step is to connect that capability building to regional markets, giving India stronger companies and Singapore commercial relationships that deepen as those businesses expand.

Singapore’s long-term opportunity is to make India’s growing productive power a source of its own regional influence.

The writer is a political economist based in Australia. Her research examines India’s industrial transformation, clean energy and economic security.