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“Singapore fortunate to have neighbours like India, China”

SINGAPORE: Singapore’s sense of urgency to engage India and China, especially in the present global economic environment, was emphasised on Friday at a function held here to instal the new leadership team of the 84-year-old Singapore Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Officiating at the induction ceremony, Minister in the Singapore Prime Minister’s Office, Lim Swee Say, said: “What is preoccupying us is not so much whether Singapore will have another good year in 2008 but rather [the outlook] in the next five, ten years. Will we be able to sustain our competitiveness, sustain our growth? In this regard, Singapore is very fortunate to have neighbours such as India and China. Singapore and India signed the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement in 2005. Since then, the bilateral trade and investment relationship has been growing very rapidly.”

The new SICCI Chairman, Vijay Iyengar, and the outgoing Chairman, M. Rajaram, also drew attention to the Chamber’s planned business missions to India and China, and thereby focussed on the relevance of these two countries to Singapore’s economic vibrancy.

Mr. Iyengar was, on an earlier occasion, cited by Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong for “the spirit of enterprise in the Indian business community.” Mr. Lee was then inaugurating SICCI’s Enterprise Development Centre.

Mr. Lim, congratulating SICCI’s new office-bearers, praised the Chamber for its sense of corporate responsibility in contributing to Singapore’s economic competitiveness and social cohesion.

Assessing Singapore in the global economic context, Mr. Lim said the City-State was the only one to have grown at a rate higher than the world’s average and recorded an unemployment quotient below that for all economies in 2007.

Noting that “the [world] outlook will be even more challenging in 2008,” he said Singapore remained confident of outperforming the global economy. And, “we believe we stand a very good chance of maintaining full employment this year.”

He said that the Indian economy was among the very few outpacing the global index now. Singapore’s trade with India grew by more than 20 per cent last year.

“In fact, the growth rate of trade between Singapore and India was even faster than the trade between Singapore and China. In terms of investment, Singapore companies are investing more into India [and] we see more Indian companies set up office in Singapore. In fact, today Singapore is home to about 3,000 Indian companies. People-to-people interaction has also gone up. Last year, we saw 7,50,000 visitors from India — the fastest growing source of tourism. Obviously, we have to find ways to strengthen our engagement with major growth economies in the world: India, China.”

Mr. Iyengar, in his acceptance speech, said he would “dedicate a separate division to encourage professionals to join the Chamber.” And, the inflow of new Indian companies into Singapore as well as the existing base of Indian professionals here would be tapped to make a success of the SICCI membership drive.

“SICCI will be developing a youth wing, and, exposure to business practices and business environment in India will also be on the agenda.” Citing SICCI’s plans to develop an Institute of Business to enhance the capabilities of members, Mr. Iyengar said a signature event this year would be a business conference of Asia Pacific countries.

Mr. Rajaram, tracing SICCI’s upward trajectory over the years, said: “Whilst the higher visibility of the Chamber [now] has been due, in a great part, to the rise of India, the Chamber’s success was [also] made possible because we recognised and seized opportunities.”

Noting the unprecedented rise in the Singapore-India trading volumes, values and patterns, he said the Chamber would continue to take the lead in promoting this trend.

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