Singapore beckons Indian SMEs

Singapore wants to attract more Indian small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) seeking to expand into Asia-Pacific markets by setting up shop in the city state as a regional base of operations, said, Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry S Iswaran, said in Singapore on Wednesday.

"We already have large companies from India coming to Singapore and using the island state for regional business.

The next step really is how this can cascade down to the larger pool of mid-size companies," he told a news agency.

After fulfilling domestic demand, the mid-size Indian companies were looking beyond their borders, especially for opportunities in the Asia-Pacific, he said after launching Tata Communications' international headquarters in Singapore.

"Singapore can be a good springboard for these mid-size companies into the region as the city state has Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with regional markets," said Iswaran.