SPEECH BY MR S ISWARAN, SENIOR MINISTER OF STATE FOR TRADE & INDUSTRY AND EDUCATION, AT THE LAUNCH OF TATA COMMUNICATIONS INTERNATIONAL HEADQUARTERS, AT SHANGRI-LA HOTEL, PINK AZALEA BALLROOM ON WEDNESDAY, 11 MAY, 1100 HRS

Mr Subodh Bhargava, Chairman, Tata Communications,

Mr Vinod Kumar, MD and CEO, Tata Communications,

Distinguished guests,

Ladies and gentlemen,

Introduction

Good morning. I am happy to join all of you to celebrate the launch of Tata Communications’ international headquarters.This happy event marks a significant milestone in the partnership between the Tata Group and Singapore, which dates back to the early 1970s.In that time, the Tata Group's growth in Singapore has been truly remarkable.Today, the 11 companies under the Tata Group employ close to 2,000 people in Singapore.

Rise of Asia

Tata Communications’ international headquarters in Singapore underscores the tremendous growth opportunities in Asia.According to Telegeography[1], the market size for intra-Asia bandwidth is expected to almost double from the current US$787 million to US$1.48 billion by 2014.Set against the backdrop of rising Asia, Singapore’s strategic location and our links to emerging markets in the region will enable telcos such as Tata Communications to capitalise on this major growth opportunity.

Singapore as a gateway for internationalisation

Singapore is also a natural gateway for Indian enterprises to access international markets, beyond Asia.Currently, there are more than 4,000 Indian enterprises in Singapore.Of these, a growing number have leveraged on Singapore as their regional and international headquarters to coordinate their overseas operations.These include Tata Consultancy Services, HCL Technologies and Punj Lloyd.As a global hub in Asia, Singapore is an excellent platform from which Indian enterprises can launch their expansion into global markets.

Singapore as a key telecommunications hub

Singapore is already a key telecommunications hub in Asia.We are the most connected country in Southeast Asia[2], with seven of the top 10 telcos[3] in the world present here. Similar to the Indian companies that have chosen Singapore as a regional hub, telcos such as NTT Communications, AT&T and Verizon have also made Singapore the focal point of their investments in this region.

Opportunities for telcos in Singapore: Services control tower and cloud hub

The increasing complexity in our global business environment, arising from factors such as the rapid growth of emerging markets as well as the greater inter-connectivity of the global economy, has given Singapore the opportunity to deepen the value it brings to telcos through what we term as services control towers.The control tower orchestrates the enterprise’s regional strategy, develops core global competencies, builds know-how and solution templates, and manages the delivery of services. The consolidation of these activities enables telcos to streamline their business operations for greater internal efficiencies and improved turnaround time to customers.

Tata Communications is a leader in this trend.As part of its international headquarters, Tata Communications has located its global managed services control tower in Singapore.For this alone, it has a team of more than 100 highly skilled professionals and has set up a 66,000 square feet Asia Pacific data centre and telecoms facility here.Further to its services control tower, Tata Communications has also picked Singapore as a hub for its cloud computing initiatives.

Earlier this year, Singapore was selected for the first launch of its cloud service offering outside India.The IDC estimates that 24 per cent of all companies in Asia use some form of cloud computing in 2010, up from 11 per cent in 2009.Our easy access to skilled infocomms talent, excellent connectivity as well as our reputation as a trusted location for data hosting, are attributes that have prompted companies such as Tata Communications, IBM and salesforce.com to select Singapore as their regional cloud computing hub to leverage on this growth in demand.

Conclusion

I would like to extend my warmest congratulations to the management and staff of Tata Communications.We warmly welcome your expansion here and are honoured that you have chosen Singapore as the base to drive the next phase of your growth.We look forward to a long a close partnership between Tata Communications, indeed the Tata Group of companies, and Singapore.Thank you.

[2] Source: Infocomms Development Authority, based on Singapore’s international bandwidth capacity. Singapore is well connected to other geographies via 14 submarine cables, which has a total bandwidth capacity of 56 Tbps.

[3]Source: Global 100 Telcos ranking by Total Telecom, based on revenues of telcos in 2009. From the list of top 10 telcos, the 7 who are present in Singapore are as follows: AT&T, NTT, Verizon, Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom, Vodafone and KDDI.