India-S'pore trade can reach USD 25 billion by 2019-20: FIEO

Bilateral trade between India and Singapore can achieve the target of USD 25 billion by 2019-20 as it has seen a strong growth in the recent years, a senior Indian trade official has said.
"We can easily reach USD 25 billion trade with Singapore by 2019-20, up from the current level of USD 17 billion," Federation of Indian Export Organizations (FIEO) chief Ganesh Kumar Gupta said here yesterday.
India's export to Singapore grew by 23 per cent in the last fiscal though overall exports grew by only 4 percent, he said, pointing out that the bilateral trade between India and Singapore was only 2.52 per cent of India's overall trade.

FIEO will be increasing participation by its small and medium scale manufacturers and retailers, Gupta said at the opening of the four-day Singapore International Indian Expo.
"The expo is providing wonderful opportunity to micro and small exporters to showcase wide range of quality products to high demanding customers in Singapore.
"Exporters will move from B2C (business to consumer) to B2B (business-to-business) platform through participation in such expo," he said.

The FIEO is participating in the expo with 89 companies representing apparel, gems and jewellery, furnitures, handicrafts and textiles.
"The participation is likely to be doubled in 2018," Gupta added.
More than 200 stalls, offering over 10,000 Indian-origin products, have been put at the expo.

Gupta joined Indian High Commissioner Jawed Ashraf and Singapore's senior Parliamentary Secretary for Trade and Industry Low Yen Ling and other officials in lighting the inaugural lamp of the expo, being held from September 7 to 10 at the Suntec complex.