Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'India can learn a lot from Singapore' that was published in Newsband

India can learn a lot from Singapore

Singapore is the 8th largest source of investment in India and the largest amongst ASEAN member nations. It is also India's 9th biggest trading partner as of 2005-06. Its cumulative investment in India totals USD 3 billion as of 2006 and rose to US 5 billion in 2010 and is expected to rise to US 10 billion by 2015. India's economic liberalisation and its "Look East" policy have led to a major expansion in bilateral trade, which grew from USD 2.2 billion in 2001 to US 9-10 billion in 2006 - a 400% growth in span of five years - and to USD 50 billion by 2010. Singapore accounts for 38% of India's trade with ASEAN member nations and 3.4% of its total foreign trade. India’s main exports to Singapore in 2005 included petroleum, gemstones, jewellery, machinery and its imports from Singapore included electronic goods, organic chemicals and metals. More than half of Singapore’s exports to India are basically "re-exports" - items that had been imported from India.

In 2005, both nations signed the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) and have organised the India-Singapore Parliamentary Forum and the Singapore-India Partnership foundation with active support from the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICC), the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Singapore Business Federation to promote trade, economic development and partnerships. The CECA eliminated tariff barriers, double taxation, duplicate processes and regulations and provided unhindered access and cooperation between the banks and financial institutions of Singapore and India. The CECA also advanced bilateral cooperation over education, science and technology, intellectual property, aviation and relaxed visa regulations for Indian professionals in information technology, medicine, engineering and financial fields to emigrate and work in Singapore. Singapore has invested in projects to upgrade India's ports, airports and developing information technology parks and a Special Economic Zone (SEZ). India has become Singapore's 4th biggest tourist destination and more than 650,000 Indians visited Singapore in 2006. Both nations have worked to collaborate on aviation, aerospace engineering, space programmes, information technology, biotechnology and energy.

Thus Singapore is one of the most developed places in the East and it will be worthwhile for India to have very close relations with Singapore. In fact, India can learn a lot from Singapore.