New Delhi [India], September 4 (ANI): Singapore is looking to partner with New Delhi to develop maintenance, repair, and overhauling (MRO) capabilities in civil aviation in India, said the Ministry of External Affairs Secretary (East) P Kumaran.

While adressing the special briefing on the official visit of Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong to India, he said, 'Civil aviation, yes. There are multiple elements that go into civil aviation cooperation, including increasing connectivity, the number of flights, and destinations etc. There is also a suggestion that maintenance, repair, and overhauling (MRO) is a major area of collaboration.'

Further, the MEA secretary noted that Singapore has very 'good experience and expertise in the area of MRO. And therefore, it is a very promising area for us to collaborate. '

'Singapore wants to invest in MRO facilities in India and help develop capacity in India,' he added.

SIA Engineering Company Limited, a Singaporean company specialising in aircraft, is looking to partner with India's Tata group in the MRO sector, Kumaran said.

'SIA Engineering is a company in Singapore. They want to partner with the Tatas since Singapore Airlines has invested in Air India to the extent of 25 per cent. So it makes sense for them to collaborate in the area of MRO with Tata's and also to help develop capacity in India, and to use the land availability in India to set up MRO facilities. So broadly, those are the areas where we collaborate,' he said.

Earlier, he said both countries have signed five key Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) during Singaporean Prime Minister Wong's visit to India. 'Five MoUs have been concluded in important fields. These include cooperation on a green and digital shipping corridor, promoting collaboration in the space sector, cooperation in training and R&D in the field of civil aviation, cooperation in digital asset innovation, and establishment of a national centre of excellence for skilling in advanced manufacturing in Chennai,' the MEA official said.

Last year, both countries exchanged an MOU on semiconductor ecosystem partnership during the visit of PM Modi to Singapore.

'Under this MOU, we have set up a bilateral semiconductor policy dialogue, and both sides are working on investments, business-to-business connections, skilling, and R&D to promote the semiconductor ecosystem in India, thus making it a very promising area of cooperation in the coming years,' MEA secy affirmed.

'The MOU concluded on the green and digital shipping corridor will facilitate collaboration on zero-emission fuel supply chains, and our maritime industries stand to benefit from this agreement... We also exchanged the MOU on digital asset innovation today, which will help foster cooperation between RBI on our side and the Monetary Authority of Singapore, in the digital space, including central bank digital currencies... ISRO has launched 18 Singaporean satellites in the past, and with the MOU exchanged today, we will be working for further collaboration in the areas of space technology and space startups,' he added.

Underscoring the importance of enhancing regional connectivity and port infrastructure to facilitate trade and economic growth, the 'two Prime Ministers jointly virtually inaugurated the phase two development of the Bharat Mumbai Container Terminal, BMCT, at Jawaharlal Nehru Port, JNP, Maharashtra,' MEA noted.

'This project, developed on a DBFOT basis, is operated by PSA International of Singapore. Completion of this phase has doubled PSA's terminal capacity to 4.8 million TEUs annually, establishing it as India's largest single container terminal and thus making JNP the largest container port in the country,' the Ministry added.

When asked, if US President, Donald Trump's tarrifs was discussed during Wong and PM Modi's meet, Secretary (East) said, 'There was no discussion on it, except for the broad global uncertainty and the need for all of us to diversify our trade and investment relationships, and explore as many preferential trade agreements or free trade agreements as possible to diversify our supply chains and make them more resilient...'

Further, MEA also said that there was 'no discussion on Myanmar elections. It was not a subject that was raised by either side.' (ANI)