During the sixth Singapore-Indonesia Leaders’ Retreat held in March 2023, it was announced that Singapore and Indonesia are exploring cooperation in new areas such as tech talent and smart cities. This comes following the resolution of longstanding bilateral issues held in January 2022, where both countries concluded agreements under an expanded framework: one on boundary realignment of their flight information regions (FIR), an extradition treaty and a defense cooperation agreement. Both countries subsequently jointly applied for approval from the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) for the new arrangement under the FIR agreement.
During the latest retreat, six government-to-government agreements were signed, as well as nine business-to-business memorandums of understanding (MOUs) between Singapore and Indonesian companies, with six related to healthcare, two to education and one to finance. One of the government agreements was an MOU to establish a new programme allowing young tech professionals to work and gain exposure in each other’s countries for up to a year, known as the Tech:X Programme, while another deal inked was on renewable energy cooperation, where both countries would facilitate investments in the development of renewable energy manufacturing industries, such as solar photovoltaics, battery energy storage systems, and cross-border electricity trading projects.
Other government agreements of note were various deals signed by Singapore’s Ministry of National Development (MND), one with the Indonesian Nusantara National Capital City Authority to make Nusantara – Indonesia’s planned new capital – smart and sustainable, and one with the Indonesian Ministry of National Development Planning for cooperation on sustainable urban and housing development. Both countries’ Ministries of Health also signed an MOU on knowledge sharing capacity building and training in health cooperation, while the Singapore Civil Defense Force and the Indonesian National Search and Rescue Agency signed another one on cooperation in urban search and rescue.
(Source: Business Times)
