Modi invites S’pore firms to invest in Navratna PSUs

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday invited investors here to participate in the proposed divestment of Navratna PSUs and sought the Singaporean government’s help in building at least 20 smart cities. In wide-ranging discussions with Singapore leaders, including its Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and President Tony Tan Keng, Modi stressed on the idea to ‘create many Singapores’ within India.

He also pitched for issuance of rupee bonds and infrastructure bonds in Singapore. Besides, Modi sought faster completion of Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) to create a new economic block within Asia. The Prime Minister also invited his Singaporean counterpart to visit India, especially Gujarat to see with his entire family the Asiatic lion, which forms part of the symbol of Singapore. Singapore sought doubling of flights to India while Modi wanted the city-state to play a key role in upgradation of railway stations in India.

At the media briefing about Modi’s meetings here, Secretary (East) at the Ministry of External Affairs Anil Wadhwa said there were broadly 14-15 key issues including skills development, urban development, tourism, civil aviation and financial services, that were discussed in the meetings the Prime Minister has had here.

“The disinvestment of Navratna PSUs also was discussed and Modi invited Singapore companies to take part in the disinvestment of these companies,” he said.

India is looking at selling stakes in Public Sector Undertakings to raise around Rs 70,000 crore in the current fiscal. PSUs are classified into three categories - Maharatna, Navratna and Miniratna - mainly based on financial criteria to give them greater operational autonomy.

Wadhwa further said: “The talks covered a wide range of areas including defence and services, culture, economic cooperation and financial services. Singapore also returned a statue of Uma Parmeshwari, which belonged to India.”

According to him, Prime Minister said that if ‘Make in India’ is to succeed then skills upgradation is very important.

“Prime Minister also said that Singapore can contribute a lot in urban development in India. The government has announced plans to build 100 smart cities and Singapore can work on building at least 20 of them,” he said. Moreover, PM Modi said on Tuesday that India is keen to scale up investments in infrastructure, adding rupee bonds to fund infrastructure projects will be launched in countries like Singapore.

Speaking at the India-Singapore Economic Convention, Modi said reforms in India are happening in a big way and will transform the systems so that they perform.

“We are keen to scale up investments in next generation infrastructure including digital networks and clean energy,” he said. “In addition to the core infrastructure, we are keen to invest in our social, industrial and agri-infrastructure to give better income and quality of life to our people.”

With tight control over expenditure, capital investment by the public sector has been greatly increased.

A National Investment and Infrastructure Fund is being set up to leverage this, while tax-free Infrastructure Bonds with broaden the corporate bond market will be issued soon.

“This will also provide long term finance for infrastructure,” he said. “For infrastructure, we have also decided to launch Rupee Bonds in some countries. Singapore could be among them. We are quite eager to work with Singapore in this regard.”

During the 18-month BJP rule, “reforms are happening in a big way. They are now reaching to the last mile. Reform is to Transform the systems so that they Perform”, he said.

Reforms are aimed at enabling the people to realise their potentials and dreams.

In addition, new frontiers and deeper foundations for financial markets have been laid. “All together, runways for take off of the economy have been made,” he said.

“Recently, the IMF chief has said that India is a bright spot in the Global economy. I did not want to wait for that brightness to reach to you on its own,” Modi said.