The Union Cabinet yesterday approved a bilateral investment agreement between India and Taiwan that is expected top help project India as a preferred foreign direct investment destination to the East Asia.
“The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved the signing of Bilateral Investment Agreement (BIA) between India Taipei Association (ITA) in Taipei and Taipei Economic and Cultural Center (TECC) in India,” an official statement said.
“The BIA is likely to increase investment flows between the parties,” it stated.
“It will provide appropriate protection to investments on a reciprocal basis between ITA and TECC.
“BIA is likely to increase the comfort level and boost the confidence of investors by assuring a level playing field and non-discrimination in matters related to investments, thus providing conducive investment climate to investors.”
India and Taiwan do not maintain formal diplomatic relations as Beijing claims Taiwan, officially called Republic of China, as a part of China. Bilateral trade volume between Taiwan and India increased 27% year-on-year to $6.4bn in 2017, according to TECC Representative Tien Chung-Kwang.
Under Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen’s New Southbound Policy (NSP) that looks to deepen the East Asian nation’s relationships with South Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand, Taiwan boosted its external trade with these NSP countries by 15.61% to $110.9bn last year.
Meanwhile, The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved a MoU signed between India and Singapore to establish a joint working group to strengthen bilateral co-operation in financial technologies. The memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between India’s Department of Economic Affairs and the Monetary Authority of Singapore during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Singapore in June this year. 
“Collaboration of India with Singapore will benefit both India and Singapore to excel in the fields of development of Application Programming Interfaces (APls), regulatory sandbox, security in payment and digital cash flow, integration of RuPay-Network for Electronic Transfers (NETS), UPI-FAST payment link, Aadhaar Stack and e-KYC in the ASEAN region and cooperation on regulations, solutions for financial markets, insurance sector and sandbox models,” the government said in a statement. 
Singapore payment system operator NETS has partnered with National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to establish a cross-border payment linkage between Singapore’s PayNow and India’s Immediate Payment Service (IMPS).
This partnership is aimed at boosting trade, tourism and remittances through real-time fund transfers between bank accounts in the respective countries.
The terms of references of the JWG include exchange of best practices to improve regulatory connect, promote experience sharing on fintech policies and regulations, encourage creation of standards on use of data by fintech firms and promote cooperation between the financial technology industry in India and Singapore.