India needs to boost ASEAN business

India’s Act East policy has started securing investments from Japan, South Korea and China, said Jamshyd N. Godrej, co-chairman of the India-Singapore Strategic Dialogue 2018 (ISSD).

“We are seeing a lot of investments coming from this (East) region (into India),” he said on 28 Aug 2018 at the 11 ISSD, referring to the East Asia’s industrial power houses of Japan, South Korea and China.

India is also looking towards the region from a trade perspective and as a source of capital, he said after concluding the ISSD public forum, organized by the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), a think tank at the National University of Singapore.

India is certainly poised for rapid growth in every sector especially in infrastructure building, said Godrej, who is also chairman of the Godrej & Boyce Manufacturing Co Ltd in an address to the forum.

He also underlined the importance of Singapore as a financial and trade destination for Indian businesses.

Speaking at the same forum, Singapore’s ambassador at large, Prof. Tommy Koh elaborated on the importance of India’s partnership with the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN).

“ASEAN and India are important economic partners,” said Koh, adding that the prospects for the combined India-ASEAN markets with about 2 billion people are very bright.

But he called for intensified cooperation between India and ASEAN, saying the two partners are underperforming.

Bilateral trade has grown up very substantially from a low of US$2.9 billion in 1993 to US$59 billion currently. Comparatively, the bilateral trade between ASEAN and China is 10 times bigger.

India accounts for 2.6% of ASEAN external trade when China accounts for 15%, according to Prof. Koh.

“There is tremendous potential for us to increase our bilateral trade and for India to occupy a much larger share of ASEAN’s external trade,” he stressed. fiinews.com