MM Lee says Mumbai has potential as regional business hub
By Channel NewsAsia's India Correspondent Vaibhav Varma | Posted: 30 October 2007 1944 hrs

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INDIA: Besides intensifying business links between Singapore and India, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew also focused on the potential of Mumbai (formerly known as Bombay) as a regional business hub during his six-day visit to India.

He said: "I first came in the 50s, have been here in the 60s, 70s, 80s, but this is the first time I have been here since the economic revival. And I find Bombay vibrant, lively.

"I think you are on the way up, but you can do better if you get your infrastructure right and maintain that infrastructure. Then you would become a desirable place. A first world nation needs a first world banking, financial, transportation centre, and for India, Bombay is already well placed for that."

Top honchos of several Indian conglomerates hope the city located in the Western Indian state of Maharashtra can develop into another Shanghai, a booming Chinese city.

At his meetings with government officials and corporate chiefs, Mr Lee shared the policies and strategies adopted by Singapore over the last four decades which have transformed the island into a first world nation.

He also offered suggestions ranging from social and political challenges to land reclamation and acquisition, partnership between the government and private enterprises, system of meritocracy, and ways of changing entrenched mindsets.

Mr Lee said: "You have to educate, persuade, cajole them, punish them – can't punish everybody at the start; get everyone to understand the value of it, then everyone gets used to it. We learnt all this over the last 48 years.

"What I have described was done in the first 15 years, in the rebuilding of the city, getting the infrastructure right, flyovers, tunnels, etc. Now, the upgrading of the city will take us another one or two decades as we move into a new era."

Together, Singapore and the Maharashtra state will explore the possibility of tapping the island's management expertise to boost Mumbai's development.

Mumbai's growth potential was also discussed at Mr Lee's meeting with the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, Dr. Y.V. Reddy.

In the last two years, especially after the signing of the comprehensive economic cooperation agreement, Singapore has been the core constituency of India's 'look east policy' and the trade boom in the region.

To help Mumbai achieve its goal of becoming a regional hub, studies will be done on how to improve the infrastructure in and around the city.


- CNA/so