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Singapore can be a bridge between India and growing economies: Nathan

S.R. Nathan

SINGAPORE: The City-State can “become a bridge between India and other fast-growing economies,” said Singapore President S.R. Nathan here on Saturday.

Profiling Singapore as a potentially vibrant link within the globalising network of major and emerging economies, Mr. Nathan urged the Singapore Indian Chamber of Commerce & Industry (SICCI) “to start building bridges linking India, through Singapore, to other dynamic economies in the [Southeast Asian] region and beyond.”

Addressing the chamber at its 83rd anniversary dinner and presenting its entrepreneur awards for 2007, Mr. Nathan expressed confidence that “SICCI is well placed” to face the “challenge” of working with other business associations in Singapore, already “a vibrant global city,” and “help” it become such a “bridge.”

He said: “In recent years, we have seen [SICCI as] a proactive chamber – active in promoting entrepreneurship, trade, and business efforts abroad; and working together with other chambers and trade associations in the furtherance of Singapore’s drive to take up the opportunities emerging beyond us in India, in the Middle East, and even in China.”

Emphasising that the India-Singapore Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA), signed in 2005, had brought businesses closer, he said the enterprises “are leveraging more on each other’s comparative advantage to grow and internationalise.” The Singapore-India trade touched a record $20-billion mark in 2006, and “the recent successful review of the CECA has opened up even more opportunities to businesses in both countries.”

Hailing the SICCI for having already “played a key role in strengthening economic ties between Singapore and India,” Mr. Nathan noted that the chamber “has organised three successful business missions to India this year, covering major cities such as Hyderabad, Bangalore and Mumbai.” He cited, in particular, the SICCI-hosted visit to Singapore by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister for promotion of investments in that State.

Mr. Nathan saw as a positive trend SICCI’s efforts to introduce the Indian market to other business chambers in the City-State such as the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce & Industry. Commending the SICCI for its plans to set up an Enterprise Development Centre in January, Mr. Nathan said he would “encourage” this venture in its outreach to India as well.

SICCI Chairman M. Rajaram said “Indian multinationals are now using Singapore as the base of operations and for acquisitions in the region.”

Nearly 2,600 Indian companies set up operations in Singapore in the last three years, while nine banks from India were also here now, he said.

Mr. Rajaram said the SICCI would take the initiative to form a “Singapore-India business centre.” To be headquartered here, the centre would eventually have offices in India as well. The proposed venture would mark “another quantum leap” in the chamber’s long interactive links with India.

Alluding to some “concerns” about “the disconnect between the Indians who were born and bred in Singapore and Indians from India, be they citizens, permanent residents, or expatriates,” he said the SICCI “can act as a bridge” to establish suitable connectivity. The SICCI, with its “healthy mix between the two groups, both in the membership and in the leadership of the chamber,” could indeed play this role.

SICCI vice-chairman Vijay Iyengar described the first recipient of the newly instituted Singapore-India Business Award, Murli K. Chanrai, as “an inspirational figure” in the bilateral domain of corporate interactions.

About the winners of the fourth annual “Indian Entrepreneurs awards,” Mr. Iyengar said they measured up as “role models of entrepreneurship and hard-won success.”

Budding entrepreneurs were also identified for “business wisdom beyond their years in the constantly challenging and changing globalised business environment.”

These awards are instituted by the SICCI in association with Singapore-based DBS bank.

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