The Hindu Business Line : India, Singapore trade to touch $50 b by 2010: Assocham

THE signing of the Comprehensive Economic Co-operation Agreement (CECA) between the Prime Ministers of India and Singapore here on Wednesday will pave the way for the two countries to enhance their two-way trade to over $10 billion by the end of 2005-06 and to $50 billion by 2010.

The trade between India and Singapore currently is estimated to be less than $8 billion.

The projection has been made in a paper brought out by The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) on `India-Singapore Comprehensive Economic Co-operation Agreement: A Pathfinder for the India-Asean FTA'.

At the official release of the study, the Assocham President, Mr Mahendra K. Sanghi, said Singapore's cumulative investment in India, which is around $3 billion, would go up to $5 billion by 2010 and to $10 billion by 2015.

The thrust areas of Singapore's investment in India would be airports, ports and building of urban infrastructure, said Mr Sanghi. He, however, said the potential for co-operative ventures was in biotechnology, healthcare, food processing, animation, entertainment and tourism.

According to the study, CECA will help Indian businesses leverage Singapore's strengths in finance, manufacturing and marketing and achieve greater competitiveness in IT through closer ties with its advanced electronic industry.

"More than 300 Indian IT companies have already set up software development operations in Singapore and there are about 1,500 Indian companies which have bases in Singapore; every year around 150 new companies set up their operations,'' said Mr Sanghi.

As a trading partner of India, Singapore accounted for, on an average, 3.0 per cent of India's total exports and 2.6 per cent of India's total imports during the five-year period from 2000-01 to 2004-05. India accounted for, on an average, 2.2 per cent and 0.9 per cent of Singapore's total exports and total imports, respectively, from 1999 to 2003.

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