India not yet ready for S'pore water firms

THE India market is not ready for Singapore water management companies, but government reforms bode well for their eventual entry.

That, at least, is the sentiment expressed at a forum on urban water and environmental management held for Indian policy makers.

'Our companies are very active in, for example, China and the Middle East. I think increasingly India will be the next frontier for them,' International Enterprise (IE) Singapore deputy chief executive officer Chua Taik Him told the media at the start of the five-day forum, organised by IE Singapore and the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

Singapore and ADB will develop pilot projects that the private sector will deliver, added Mr Chua.

Infrastructure in India is currently government-funded. The government has accepted the need for private funding but has yet to make the necessary reforms, said Hun Kim, ADB's director of social sectors, South Asia department.

But this could change in the next five years, he added. 'India is not quite ready for the kind of projects that Singapore companies have been active in, in China,' said Konzen Group's chief executive officer Yeong Wai Cheong, referring to the build-operate-transfer business model.

Still, entry could be possible in the next two years, contingent on the introduction of an Indian water tariff structure to fund infrastructure provision. And when Singapore companies do enter, it will be as a consortium, said Mr Yeong.

Singapore water companies will pool resources to provide a 'total solutions package', said Ng Han Tong, director of industry development at the Public Utilities Board (PUB) and managing director of PUB's commercial arm, Singapore Utilities International.

The forum was the second activity held under the Asia Training and Research Initiative for Urban Management, which promotes cooperation and knowledge sharing on urban management for Asian developing countries.