S’pore starts marketing Indian SEZ venture

NEW DELHI: Singapore may not have declared the location of its proposed model special economic zone in India but it has begun actively marketing it to the world. While it has already targeted investments from Japanese companies, it is now wooing other countries like Italy to invest in its SEZs in India.

Singapore has proposed to set up three SEZs starting with a model SEZ to be developed by a consortium of Singaporean companies, with Ascendas being the lead agency for the project. This will be followed up with two other SEZs in the country based on its model SEZ. With Japanese investments as target, industry believes that the model SEZ could come up in the Delhi-Mumbai industrial corridor being developed by Indian government, in partnership with Japan.

For its SEZs in India, Singapore is trying to attract investments from other countries as well. Singapore senior minister Goh Chok Tong is learnt to have marketed the SEZ to Italy on his visit to the country. With Singapore being the SEZ developer, the investor country is assured about the infrastructure. Singapore is using its brand to attract investments in India, says an industry expert.

Singapore recently brought a Japanese business delegation to India and has been interacting with the Japanese industry to attract investments in its SEZs.

“India and Japan have recently signed the Special Economic Partnership Initiative and Japanese companies wanting to invest in India would be more comfortable setting up units in the Singaporean SEZ,” CII president R Seshasayee said.