India and Singapore, on Tuesday, signed a Declaration of Intent for the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement between the two countries.

The declaration signed by Commerce Minister Arun Jaitley and Singapore Minister of Trade and Industry George Yeo comes even as the Indo-Singapore bilateral trade in the April-November period at $1.94 billion registered a growth of 29.47 per cent over the corresponding period last year.

This includes exports to Singapore at $1.036 billion and imports at $0.91 million recording a growth of 70.13 per cent and 01.82 per cent respectively.

The joint study group of the two countries set up last year to study the benefits of a CECA has recommended a bilateral free trade agreement covering both trade in goods and services.

It has also recommended a bilateral agreement for promotion and protection of investment and enhanced bilateral cooperation in areas of specific interest to both the countries.

Areas of common interest could include customs, tourism, civil aviation, infrastructure development, information technology, media, creation of a joint fund for investment promotion and review of the existing bilateral double taxation avoidance treaty.

Singapore is India's largest trading partner in the ASEAN region, accounting for about 29 per cent of India's total trade with the countries in this region. This includes 28 per cent of India's exports and about 30 per cent of imports for ASEAN in 2001-02.

India has traditionally had adverse balance of trade with Singapore except for the current year period (April-November), which witnessed export growth of 70 per cent.

Major items in export basket to Singapore are electronic goods (13.21 per cent), gems and jewellery (12.57 per cent), aluminium other than products (10.02 per cent) and oil meals (7.44 per cent).

There are a large number of Indian joint ventures and wholly owned subsidiaries in Singapore including several banks and private companies.

Singapore is the 11th largest investor into India in terms of approved investment with Rs 5,178 crore (Rs 51.78 billion) of approved foreign direct investment during the period from 1991 and 2002.