Temasek ups India exposure

Temasek Holdings, the investment arm of the Singapore government, has
substantially increased its exposure to India. The company's investment in
India along with Pakistan has gone up to 3% of its total asset
exposure in last financial year from 2% in FY05.

Manish Kejriwal, Temasek's MD (investments) for India and
Russia, said: the company continued to remain optimistic on India's long term growth prospects. "We have a two pronged investment thesis for India - to invest in sectors which are proxies to India's economic growth and to participate in industries where India enjoys certain competitive
advantages," he said.

Temasek has invested in companies such as Tata Teleservices, ICICI
Onesource, Mahindra & Mahindra, ICICI Bank, Shringar Cinemas, Apollo Healthcare, Medreich and Reliance India Power Fund.

S Dhanabalan, chairman of Temasek, said: "The growing economies in Asia continue to hold much promise for the long term, though we can expect bumps along the way."

Singapore continues to be the main destination of its investment with a 44
per cent share in FY06, 5% lower than the figure in FY05. The combined exposure to China, Taiwan and Korea stood at 19% at the end of the last financial year.

Last year, Temasek's net portfolio value grew 24% to Singapore $ 129 billion, up from Singapore $103 billion a year ago. Temasek made Singapore $ 21 billion of new investments and monetised Singapore $ 13 billion of its portfolio.