India, Singapore trade doubles on free trade pact

Singapore, Oct 18 (PTI) Buoyed by cuts in custom tariffs
following a market opening agreement, trade between India and
Singapore has seen a quantum jump of 98.6 per cent in the
first nine months of 2010 over the same period last year.
The bilateral trade aggregated Dollar (Singapore) 22.68
billion (USD 17.4 billion) between January and September,
according to data released Monday by the International
Enterprise Singapore (IE Singapore).
Indian exports to Singapore increased by 49 per cent
year-on-year to SGD 9.26 billion during the period, while
imports from Singapore increased by 31 per cent to SGD 13.42
billion.
The two countries have been liberalising trade since
2005, which was further given a push when they implemented a
trade opening pact with Asean.
Duties on over 2,700 product lines have been eliminated
as part of these agreements.
The data clearly showed that the freeing of trade
through a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA)
helped Indian exporters more than their counterparts in
Singapore. CECA came into force in August 2005 and is being
implemented in phases pushing the two-way trade.
Besides, industry sources said that the implementation of
India-Asean free trade pact from January 2010, has furthered
opened and enhanced commerce between the two nations.
Singapore is a member of the 10-nation Association of
South East Asian nations.
Singapore’s total exports grew by 25.5 per cent to SGD
355.32 billion during the first nine months of this year, IE
Singapore said.