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