3,084 Indian firms set up shops in Singapore

With growing appetite for investments abroad, the number of Indian companies setting up units in Singapore has grown three-fold in six years to 3,084 in 2007.

Indicating this Singapore's Economic Development Board (EDB) Assistant managing director for Asia Pacific Tan Choon Shian said that since Comprehensive Economic Co-operation Agreement (CECA) came into being in 2005 between India and Singapore, such numbers are more pronounced as it doubled from 1,644 to 3,084 in just two years.

He, however, said that the quantum of investment from India was still not large as it would be a few million dollars of the total 16 billion Singapore dollars of investments that the island country has attracted in 2007.

But, of late, some large investments are pouring in and the most recent one is 110-million Singapore dollar investment by Tamil Nadu Petro Products for setting up a petrochemical plant in Singapore in collaboration with Kuwait Finance House.

Wipro Technologies is also setting up an R&D centre in Singapore, Tan said, adding that there are few other companies which would shortly be firming up investments in Singapore which includes Tatas as well.

EDB is mainly interested with the task of attracting investments from abroad and Singapore is overwhelmed by the growth story of India and China, which are real. The two Asian countries have enormous potential in the coming years, but the US and Europe dominate foreign investments in the island country.