Lim proposes linking Asian cities

Lim proposes linking Asian cities

Singapore's Communication and Information Minister David Lim
said in New Delhi Tuesday his country was setting up a network
for IT development in the Asian region connecting all big cities
including those in India.

India had already evinced keen interest in joining the project
called the "Asian belt of IT cities," which proposes to pool in
the strengths of different countries in the region "to
collectively grow the market".

"It is really the creation of new ideas we are looking at to
build infrastructure, to increase competencies," he said, adding
Asian countries could tap third-country markets in partnership.

Lim said China's strengths in hardware and India's pool of
software talent would mean it could bring complementary strengths
to the project.

"India seems to be interested in the project. I would think
China would be interested too," the minister added.

He said the Asian cities which could be connected apart from
India's include Shanghai, Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong and Singapore.

The minister said cooperation between individual corporations
of Asian countries, such as a joint venture between India's
Bharti group and Singapore Telecom, was already taking place.

He said no large investments had been planned as of now,
adding this would depend on how the whole project took shape.

Earlier on Tuesday, Indian IT and Communications Minister
Pramod Mahajan said he was trying to set up a forum to bring
about common Asian policies for IT and telecommunications.

"I am planning to write to eight to 10 Asian ministers to meet
sometime in March and April. The idea is we should have some
common policy or mechanism in IT and telecoms so that Asia will
be benefited," he told a conference of the high-powered India
Economic Summit here. --AFP