Singapore’s growth story has been extraordinary with the country transitioning rapidly from a low-income to a high-income economy. The scorching pace of industrialization in the 1960s propelled the island nation’s development trajectory with manufacturing becoming the main driver of growth. As one of Asia’s most industrialized economies, the city-state witnessed phenomenal economic growth with GDP growth being amongst the world’s highest, at an average of 7.7% since independence and topping 9.2% in the first 25 years.
However, given the COVID-19 challenge, there is almost a complete cessation of economic activity the world over. Firms are concerned about how the global economy is going to fare, and about the flow of trade in a stricter health and safety regime.
Importantly, each country is now also planning an exit strategy to restart economic activity. The expectation is that global trade will revive before investment-related activities resume. In this background, CII’s Market Facilitation Services (MFS) has come out with a report on Trade Opportunities in Singapore. The report provides granular business intelligence on Singapore’s import basket that can assist companies in pursuing focussed projects for expanding exports. Companies can use this downtime to plan future export projects using this business intelligence as a starting point.
The report undertakes a deep-dive into the top 25 imports of Singapore over a five-year period and the broad contours of the country import profile report are as under:
An executive summary to build up the case for exporting to Singapore, including measures/initiatives announced for mitigating COVID-19 effect.
Top 25 imports at HS Code 6-digit level for a five-year period, along with imports’ CAGR. Additionally, each product is further analysed to identify the current top exporting countries, India’s share and ranking in that product, existing tariffs and a commentary on likely potential for Indian firms to increase their exports.
An analysis of the balance of trade for each product to establish if Singapore is importing for re-exports or for local consumption.
A list of products at NTL (National Tariff Line), where available, to identify the exact product being imported so as to enable Indian industry to customize product specs.
A list of trade barriers, if any, for top imports.
Concluding analysis taking all the above into account to suggest certain product categories that hold potential for exports.
A list of importing companies in Singapore to serve as a first touch point for Indian firms.
This exhaustive ready-reckoner is being made available at a nominal price of Rs 10,000 each for CII members and Rs 15,000 each for non-members. A discount of 10% would be made available if three or more reports are taken together. CII could also provide further facilitation services on a subsidised fee in case a company wishes to pursue a product line in Singapore.
For obtaining a copy or any clarifications, please write to Mr Neeraj Sharma at neeraj.sharma@cii.in.