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New Delhi : Delivering the inaugural address at the 28th edition of DST-CII India-Singapore Technology Summit, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Science & Technology; MoS PMO, Dr Jitendra Singh, on February 23, 2022, said that India is now an attractive hub for foreign investments in the manufacturing sector.
Dr Singh said with the help of Make in India drive, India is on a path of becoming the hub for hi-tech manufacturing as global giants have either set up or are in process of setting up manufacturing plants in India attracted by its market of more than a billion consumers and an increasing purchasing power.
Dr Singh said, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India, with over 1,200 government funded research institutions, proactive policy mechanism, collaboration between Industry and academia, is readying itself to an era of innovation economy. He said that India is on a continuous rising trajectory of innovation and with emerging technologies taking the centre stage of innovation like block chain, nanotechnology, quantum computing, internet of things, artificial intelligence, India aspires to be in the league of top 25 innovation nations, according to a PIB release.
The Minister said, India is placed 3rd among countries in scientific publication as per NSF database and it has featured within the top 50 innovative economies globally (at 46th rank), as per Global Innovation Index (GII). “We have also achieved 3rd Position in term of number of PhDs, in size of Higher Education System as well as in terms of number of Start-ups,” he said.
Dr Singh said that Singapore is India’s largest trade partner in ASEAN and it is the leading source of Foreign Direct Investment. Data indicates that about 9,000 Indian companies are registered in Singapore and more than 440 companies from Singapore are registered in India. He said,” Singapore companies continue to participate in a number of smart cities, urban planning, logistics, and infrastructure projects and Singapore is working with several states in preparing Master Plans for townships,” said Dr Singh.
Dr Singh informed that India and Singapore have well established Science, Technology and Innovation linkages. He pointed out that the ISRO launched Singapore’s first indigenously built micro-satellite in 2011 and 8 more during 2014-15. He said, under the leadership of Prime Minister Narender Modi, India has made technology a medium for attaining social justice, empowerment, inclusion and transparency.
He added that the government is using technology to ensure effective last mile delivery of services. The Minister pointed out that DST has been making concerted efforts in cultivating and promoting scientific temperament amongst the masses and is leading the research and innovation drive in the country. “In this direction we are running several mission mode programmes like National Hydrogen Energy Mission, National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber Physical Systems (ICPS); Quantum Computing and Communication; National Mission on Supercomputing, Electric Mobility etc to support the cause,” he added.
Dr Singh said that the the MoU and Implementation Agreement concluded on February 23 between the two countries will strengthen India- Singapore Science, Technology and Innovation Collaboration. He said it will enable our industry and research institutes to develop new products jointly related to economic and societal challenges.
Addressing the Technology Summit, Singapor Minister for Transport and Minister-in-charge of Trade Relations S Iswaran said that Bi-lateral Trade between India and Singapore increased by 35% from 19.8 billion dollars to 26.8 billion dollars from 2020 to 2021. Referring to the Global Innovation Alliance (GIA) Node set up in Bengaluru by Singapore, Iswaran said more GIA Nodes will be established in Indian cities for SMEs and Start-ups to scale up by using Singapore as a springboard for operations in Asia and the world.
Iswaran also flagged three key areas of future cooperation like D-Tech using A-I for smart cities, Clean-Tech for carbon mitigating technologies in Aviation and Transport sectors and joint projects on Genome and Bioinformatics research.