Ahmedabad, (IANS) Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT), India's first International Financial Services Centre (IFSC), announced on Monday that it crossed $250 million worth of business transactions in the last six months.

"The next target is $500 million and then the $1 billion mark in the coming months," it said in a statement.

"The first mark of $100 million was crossed in early February. In two months' time, business transactions at IFSC have more than doubled," it added.

In February, the IFSC announced that Yes Bank and Federal Bank have generated business worth $100 million within three months of the launch of their banking units in the centre, from services such as buyers' credit, external commercial borrowings, deposits and credit facilities to Indian companies registered abroad.

More than 10 banks have already started their operations from GIFT City where phase-1 development has seen allotments of over 14 million square feet of built-up area, GIFT IFSC said.

A unit at the GIFT IFSC is equivalent to a foreign branch and facilitates the bank to function as such from within India.

"The tax incentives have put the GIFT IFSC on the global financial map. After banks, we expect a few insurance companies to start operations soon at GIFT IFSC," said GIFT City group chief executive Ajay Pandey.

He said stock and commodity market operations are the other major focus areas and work is actively on to get the facilities started.

"Significant volumes of NSE's Nifty derivatives trading are taking place on the Singapore Stock Exchange. We want GIFT IFSC to start trading in this segment so that this derivatives trading business can come back to India from Singapore," Pandey said.