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SUNNYVALE, United States : Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong visited Internet giant Yahoo on Monday for a personal look at the company's new technology and the economic opportunities they offer.
"We just want to learn about the prosperous growth of the US economy and the non-stop innovation in this great country," Mr Lee said after getting private demonstrations of a trio of new Yahoo products.
"We are a small country so we want to learn what is happening in the outside world so that we can contribute."
Mr Lee spent an hour in a closed-door meeting with Yahoo executives including co-founder Jerry Yang and chief executive Terry Semel.
"We are pretty delighted the prime minister came to talk to us," said Yahoo vice president of international emerging markets Keith Nelson, who took part in the meeting.
"He has a keen interest in technology and asked a number of very smart questions about Yahoo and the Internet space."
Mr Lee and Yahoo executives discussed increasing the Internet giant's investment in Singapore and having it use the country as a "hub" for doing business throughout the region, according to Nelson.
"It was a light, casual, positive meeting," Mr Nelson told AFP. "The prime minister was pretty supportive of building Internet technology hubs in Singapore."
Yahoo has had operations in Singapore for a decade and has been in discussions with its government "for a long time," according to Mr Nelson.
"Singapore has a stable government, strong intellectual property protections, and an infrastructure in place for Internet technology. All of that bodes well for using it as a hub."
Yahoo leaders gave Mr Lee a Nokia mobile telephone with the Internet company's new oneSearch mobile online search software.
OneSearch was among the innovations Lee scrutinised during private demonstrations that also included a look at Yahoo's freshly launched free web-based email service in multiple languages. - AFP/ch
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