Prime Minister Modi, Xi JinpingSingapore and the Southeast Asian region should continue to work closely with both India and China given the two countries’ crucial role in regional growth and development, Sim Ann, the city-state’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, said on Thursday. She underlined the importance of China and India as economic powerhouses and crucial players on the world stage at an opening event for a series by two think tanks to explore key issues related to China and India and their role in the global economy.
The senior Singaporean minister was speaking at the launch of the series ‘China and India: Two Giants Shaping the Global Economy’, to be jointly held by the East Asian Institute (EAI) and the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS) of the National University. of Singapore (NUS).
Experts shared their views and opinions on the two countries at the inaugural workshop, pointing out that China and India, the world’s first and third largest economies in terms of purchasing power parity, wield enormous global influence.
The two countries together account for 35 percent of the world’s population and are expected to contribute 50 percent of global economic growth by 2024.
The launch event was also addressed by leading experts, scientists and researchers, including Dr Li Li, Deputy Director of the Institute of International Relations (IIR) at Tsinghua University, and Professor C Raja Mohan, Visiting Research Professor at ISAS.
EAI Managing Director Alfred Schipke said: “China and India are crucial pillars in the global economic landscape, with their combined potential driving half of the world’s economic growth in the coming years. As key players in trade and innovation, their influence extends beyond borders, shaping policy and addressing global challenges.”
The two NUS research institutes will jointly organize workshops and public events to explore China and India’s growth strategies and their broader impact on the global economy from a policy perspective by bringing together academics, policy makers, practitioners and business leaders.
ISAS Director Iqbal Singh Sevea noted that both India and China are crucial to the future of digitalization and the transition to the green economy.
“Overall, the world order is evolving, and the future of the global economy will be shaped by India and China. So we need to understand what impact these two countries will have on global trends,” he said.
