Meet The Ambassador

Business Times - 27 Mar 2004

THE RAFFLES CONVERSATION
US firms take fresh look at India

FRANK Lavin is just back from a week-long trip to India: he led a mission of 20 companies from the American Chamber of Commerce on a visit to Bangalore, Mumbai and New Delhi.

Why would the US Ambassador to Singapore go on a business trip to India? His answer is revealing - about how Singapore operates as a hub for multinational companies and how the rise of regional economies like India can feed through to Singapore.

'We have about 1,500 US companies here and 90 per cent of those companies have responsibilities outside of Singapore,' he says. 'For some it's Asean, for some it's Australasia, for some it's China. But for a good number of them, it's India. They manage their India operations out of here.

'We've seen the stories about 'India Shining' (an advertising campaign by the Indian government to highlight India's achievements) and have noted India's economic performance. So we thought, let's go take a look.'

And his impressions of India?

'I was struck by the strong leadership consensus in India for economic growth, market rationalism and internationalising the Indian economy,' he says.

'What's going on there is very impressive. It felt like going to China about 10 or 15 years ago: there's economic performance and there's economic opportunity - it's intriguing.

'And my sense is that India is under-invested and that US companies are not fully ramped up to reflect the new opportunities there.'

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