India, Singapore to sign pact on Intellectual Property Rights soon

New Delhi, Jun 23 (UNI) Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath today said a bilateral agreement on Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Cooperation between India and Singapore will be signed shortly.

Mr Nath, during his bilateral meeting with his Singapore counterpart Lim Hng Kiang, the IPR Cooperation will be signed between the between Intellectual Property Offices of India and Singapore.

Asked about the ASEAN-India FTA, Mr Nath said considerable progress was made during the last meeting in Bali. ''I am now hopeful that we would be able to achieve our target of announcing the conclusion of negotiations at the AEM-India Consultations in August,'' he added.

During the interaction, Mr Nath said Singapore was India's fifth largest merchandise trading partner and the fourth largest merchandise export market.

He added that India's exports to Singapore grew by 16 per cent in the year 2007-08 compared to a growth of 42 per cent in the imports from Singapore.

Mr Nath stated that Singapore ranked fourth in terms of foreign direct investment in India during the period 1991-2008 with investments of 4.7 billion dollars.

The total bilateral trade has increased by 25.88 per cent to 13.42 billion dollars in the year 2007-08 (up to February 2008) from 11.49 billion dollars during 2006-07.

Major items of Indian exports to Singapore were petroleum (crude and products); other commodities; transport equipments; electronic goods and non-ferrous metals.

Major items of Indian imports from Singapore were electronic goods; petroleum (crude and products); organic chemicals; machinery (except electrical and electronic) and project goods.

The top five sectors attracting FDI inflows from Singapore are petroleum and natural gas, mining, services sector, construction activities and power.

The top five sectors attracting technology transfer are electrical equipments (including computer software and electronics), hotel and tourism, food processing industry, chemicals (other than fertiliser) and miscellaneous mechanical and engineering industries.

UNI BKS SR UCS1845