Good evening Excellencies, Ladies & Gentlemen.
It gives me great pleasure to be here tonight at the end of what has been an eventful four days at Global Entrepolis 2007. I am pleased to note that the Global Indian Business Summit (GIBS), which was successfully launched at Global Entrepolis Singapore 2006, was a major event for this year’s GES.
Indians of South Asian origin are found in 136 countries around the world, and in 40 of these countries they exceed 50,000 persons. They make up more than 40% of the population in Fiji, Mauritius, Guyana & Suriname. There exist smaller minorities in Malaysia, S. Africa, Sri Lanka, Uganda, U.K., U.S.A, Canada & Singapore. They are in the professions, business and more recently, politics of their country of domicile. We in Singapore are pleased to note that in addition to our existing historical population of Indians, we have recently been able to attract a large number of young professional Indians in our search for foreign talent.
It is heartening to see that GIBS sees its role as engaging successful Diaspora Indian Entrepreneurs to meet and generate profitable partnerships and create a platform for diaspora Indian businesses to meet at least once a year. Using Singapore as a hub, they can tap into our wide network to generate intra-regional business prospects.
The Global Indian Business Awards, which is being launched tonight will serve to draw attention to a section of otherwise unknown global businesses. I am pleased that we in Singapore have been able to host such a distinguished gathering of successful Indian Businesspeople. I hope that they will seriously consider Singapore as a base for their operations in the region, and use the well established network of Singapore businesspeople to expand their businesses.
I understand that tonight also sees the launch of SingTel mio TV’s partnership with NDTV, the leading broadcaster in India. The launch of NDTV 24×7 and NDTV Profit will I’m sure be welcomed not only by the Indian community in Singapore, but also all the other who have been closely following the dramatic economic growth of India and the vast business opportunities that it provides to all.
I wish you all the awardees greater success in their business and SingTel and NDTV a fruitful partnership.
I also take this opportunity to wish you all a very pleasant evening.
Thank You
